Growing Up.

Growing up

Time in the playpen under the heat lamp is that special time when new parents take pictures, obsess over the details, grandma visits, and baby chicks start feathering out, developing personalities and growing up.

 

By late April they were becoming larger, entering that awkward phase, and becoming antsy! Each day the playpen was becoming smaller and they were becoming eager to explore. By the beginning of May I was thinking on moving them to the coop, but a nervous mommy (my lovely wife) and a late spring cold snap had us keeping the girls inside until they were more than ready to face the big world outside.

Funny … it never occurred to us that the door to the spare room was too small to wheel the playpen outside to the run. We thought about bringing the girls (and Coq Au … you remember Coq Au. This is a blog about Coq Au) out there one by one. The cats were all in favor of this idea which only made herself and I all the more wary of ‘plan B’. Instead, we overrode democracy, out voted the cats, and instituted plan C. We got a large wicker laundry basket and a very large beach towel to cover it. I grabbed a nervous hen, my wife pulled back the towel, in went Ermatrude, and my wife covered the basket with the towel again. Next came Myrtle, but when she pulled back the towel, out popped Ermatrude. A few attempts, a few hens in, and it became a weird livestock version of ‘whack-a-mole’ with random little chicken heads popping out of the corners of the towel each time a hint of daylight was revealed and we had to time precisely how to pull back the towel, get a young pullet inside, and close it again before increasingly anxious chickens spilled out in all directions. This game became increasingly challenging with each addition. But, perseverance won the day and we got them into the basket. Coq Au Vin and all.

 

Out to the coop they went. We spent the day agonizing and fawning over every detail. Coq Au, although still but a young wisp of a cockerel, was already beginning to plot how to become a douche bag and how to wrest control of the situation from the obviously inferior humans (remember, we’ve dotted on him as much or more than any of the wee hens!)

 

I should note here that baby chicks are incredibly adorable. Roosters and hens are majestic in their somewhat frumpy way. But ‘teen’ pullets and cockerels are about the most awkward creatures that ever drew breath.

 

Never the less, they started showing their personalities. Hermione, the smallest hen, ran the show with the other girls. Hildegard liked to perch higher than everyone. Hortense like her ‘me’ time by herself. Myrtle could snatch and go with treats faster than anyone … bent toe and all. Coq Au Vin, in his quiet, watchful way, began to develop a sense of purpose in his black, black heart (which pumps not blood, like yours and mine, but a thick viscous oil of vitriolic hatred). He was beginning to decide that it was his personal mission to protect his girls at all costs and take utter contempt toward all things un-chicken! And he’s essentially right.

Well … so … we also noticed that they took to the habit of conducting morning meetings. It can not be told what they would discuss amongst themselves, they had a tendency to get real quiet as soon as anyone was in earshot. My wife did try to chair a couple of these morning meetings, but her authority, as recognized by the flock, was ceremonial at best and only lasted as long as treats could be distributed.

 

There would be more growing to do. And a lot of learning. The chickens had things to learn also!