Hen succession

The first thing we did on the day after Big Chicken and Pretty Chicken disappeared was to order two new chickens.

This felt a little callous, but we thought it would be good for the welfare of the remaining birds to maintain the flock size. To be honest, it also helped with the grieving for us. Although Big and Pretty will still be missed, and in reality cannot be replaced, the new chickens are intended as worthy successors. As a student of French royal history might be tempted to say “Les Poules sont mortes – vivent les Poules.”

At the local shop we were offered a choice of four types of chicken – red, black, grey or Sussex. It seems that the reds are in fact brown – and probably much the same as the ones we already have. The Sussex (you have to imagine this said more like “soossex”) are white with black markings, and for some reason we didn’t fancy them. We weren’t sure about the greys – perhaps like our inherited Lonely Chicken. So, by a process of elimination, we went for the blacks.

The next day we arrived to pick up our two new birds. Unceremoniously bundled into my cardboard box, my impression was that they were big, black and boisterous. When we released them into our pen, we could see individual features – notably that one was obviously much more immature than the other, as shown by the small, light coloured comb.

We wanted to give names to the new birds, but as in the past we decided to wait until their behaviour suggested appropriate names for each.

For the apparently older bird, we did not have to wait long. Far from being cowed in her new surroundings, she was almost immediately strutting around, pushing her way to the front of the queue for food, and confidently walking around my feet pecking at anything that might be edible or interesting. Pushy Chicken it is then. If you look closely, you can see that ‘black’ is a wholly inadequate description of her colour. There’s lots of brown in there, especially on the neck. And a brilliant green sheen on her wing feathers.

The younger bird has none of the confidence of her companion. She is right at the bottom of the pecking order, the victim of all henly bullying. She hovers around the outside of the group stuffing themselves at the food bowl. She runs away from all possible threats, whether they come from chickens, cats, dogs, humans, or her own imagination. When we let the new hens out of the pen to become familiar with the yard and garden, she runs off to be on her own. She is Runner Chicken. I do hope she settles down as she grows up!