A Little Help From My Friend

Not a very becoming picture, but a daily reality in my world.  I scoop the poop in my chicken coops daily.  This helps keep this fresh, clean, and hopefully disease free.  Lately, I have had a little helper.  One of my new hatches from last summer. Her name is Matilda (Tildy for short) and she is a mutt easter egger.  Pretty sure her dad was one of my mixed barred rock roosters and her mom was most likely one of my easter egger hens.  She is a sweetie and very curious about everything.

She has now decided that my "poop" bucket is a fun place to investigate in the mornings.  It makes for a challenging task of trying to clean the coop.  I get so tickled with her.  She wasn't always so curious and generally didn't want anything to do with me until she got a jealous streak with her "sister" Dolly.  Dolly is my personal "parrot."  Dolly is another mixed breed hatch from last year, the same hatch as Matilda. Completely different parents as Dolly came from a different coop than Matilda (different parents).  Dolly has been my personal buddy since she was a chick.  She is the one that loves to fly up or over to my shoulder and just perch and hang out.

My perch buddy, Dolly

Matilda decided one day that the extra attention might be kinda nice.  She started coming over every time that I would pay attention to Dolly.  Before you knew it we were friends too and now she will actually come over when I call her by name.  If you have chickens and want them to be "pet" friendly, aside from certain breeds that tend to be pet friendly, you just need to spend LOTS of time with them when they are chicks.  When I touch and pet my chicks on a daily basis, I tend to get more pet-friendly results.  If I miss a day or two, they seem to quickly revert back to wildness.  Chickens are funny, curious creatures and I doubt you would ever regret trying them out should you ever feel the urge to get some.  They provide wonderful eggs, meat if you choose to slaughter them, and endless entertainment.  Laughter is good for the soul.  Bless you today!