We have one little bantam hen. You probably remember and are probably tired of hearing the story but we started out with about 5 bantam chicks. When they were a couple of years old, a bunch of the mamas were sitting on eggs. Bantams LOVE to hatch babies. Dogs came through and killed almost all our chickens but they didn’t ruin the eggs in the nests. That night, a cold December night, I was bawling because I had lost my favorite chickens, Vince was helping clean out the coops and we heard noises coming from some of the eggs. We ran and got the incubator set up, put the eggs in there and I can’t remember how many, but some of them hatched.
They grew up and then the hens began sitting on eggs and we were soon overrun by bantam chickens. We decided to give them all away . . all they wanted to do was have babies and we didn’t need any more babies. We gave away about 40 chickens sitting on about 100 eggs. The guy who took them said some of the eggs hatched on their way home. But there was one little black hen that flew into the woods as we were trying to load them up. We tried to get her but couldn’t. We figured something would eat her in the woods but about three days later, she showed up. That had to be 3 years ago . . and she’s still here and she’s the most aggravating little hen ever!
She’s the one who’s always wanting to sit on eggs . . of course . . she’s a bantam. And, she’s mean as a snake. I think she sharpens her beak because she can grab the skin on my hand and pull a hunk of it off before I see her coming at me. She sits on the nest . . poor thing has no idea I’m taking all the eggs and leaving golf balls under her . . but she’ll sit there for three or four months. It should only take 21 days to hatch babies but I guess without smart phones, they have no idea how many days have gone by. If I didn’t have a phone, I’d never know the date and quite possibly, I wouldn’t even know the month.
She will get off the nest for a week or so, lay a couple of eggs (they don’t lay when sitting on the nest . . even if there are only golf balls in the nest!), then she gets back on the nest again.
But, the most aggravating thing she does is this . .
Aggravating Chicken
She lays her eggs in the food container. The laying boxes have straw in them so if I scare a chicken off the nest, there’s not a whole lot of dust and chicken poop flying. This little hen . . when I have to shoo her off so I can put food in the container, she flies and lands and stirs up dust and poop and chicken feathers. Oh, she’s a pain in the back side.
The funny thing is that as the other chickens eat, since the food container is hanging and not touching the floor, it turns. I would think that would get old turning clockwise, then turning counterclockwise, then turning clockwise. Either it doesn’t bother her or she’s decided to deal with it just so she can aggravate me by being in the food container.
As the chickens eat more of the food, she’ll end up way on the bottom. I only put food in there every 4 or 5 days and I can always tell how much food is still in the container by the level at which she’s sitting.
I complain about her but I’ll miss her when she’s gone. She’s probably the feistiest of all the chickens we have and she does some funny things.
Ruth says
I suppose you really love that bantam hen, because you could always put a lid on that food container….
cindy says
that was going to be my suggestion, too.
Teri says
Seems to have quite the personality! Does she have a name?
Bon says
You have some of the most interesting chickens. I don’t remember either of my grandmas having interesting ones. Just plain ole boring chickens.