A Chicken Story

This happened yesterday morning:

So my mom is sick and Dad went to church alone Sunday morning. He has issues with on-time-ness when left to his own devices and so was running late. Mom asked if I could let the chickens out into their pen. I leave a bit later than they do (different churches and all - they have to get their early for practice since Dad's on the 'worship team') so it wasn't a problem. I knew that the chickens needed their water refilled and they needed food and some more of this stuff we feed them to help them have strong shells on their eggs. It's ground up and baked (?) oyster shells. Anyway. I got the food ready and grabbed the bag of shells and then the water bucket and trucked on down to the pen.

I set everything down and opened up the gate to the pen and then I decided 'Oh, I'll leave this open while I get the food into their feeders and get everything all set up and then I'll close it before I let them out of the coop.' Brilliant plan, right? Right.

So I get the feeders filled and the water set and all that good stuff and then I roll the tarp back (we have it on to help keep them warm since it's been so cold at night) and open the coop door. Out pops Henzilla (our giant hen - seriously, she's the size of a small turkey) and I'm busily latching the coop door open so it won't swing shut in the wind or anything and I see Rocket (the rooster) hauling chicken butt toward the corner of the pen where the door is. And I look and think, 'Huh. Where's he going in such a hurry.' Then I swung my head up to watch him and went 'OH SHIT!' because, you guessed it, I forgot to close the gate.

Of course Rocket was already out in the yard by this point. I shooed Henzilla back farther into the pen and tried to coax Rocket back into the pen with sweet words and some food. No go. He'd sort of come but then he refused to go past the door. So I went out of the pen and went and got the work gloves that were in the big shed. I though maybe, since he's an old show rooster and used to people handing him, that he'd let me walk up and pick him up if I moved slowly and didn't startle him.

Hah! I 'chased' him around the pen and the shed twice. Very. Slowly. Well, I'd left the shed door open and on the second pass he decided to run up the ramp and into the shed. Great! So I followed him in and closed the door behind us - now I had him in an enclosed space and at least he couldn't fly off. Easy as pie from then on, right?

Clearly you have never tried to catch a chicken.

Ten minutes, at least. Because it's a rather large shed - more like a workshop and it's full of stuff because Dad's working on building Chicken Palace so we can get some more hens. So there's wood and things just *all over* and it's like a chicken sized maze! I finally got him cornered between two spools of extension cords (I'd given up the nice and slow approach by this point and chased him there with a broom) and managed to get one hand on his back over his wings and then scooped him up with the other hand.

And then the bloody bird just laid back and looked at me like, 'Well, that was fun!' Henzilla was down in the pen making very unhappy chicken noises and Rocket just let me carry him down and even shift him so that I had him pinned between my own arm and my side so I could open the gate. No trouble. Bloody bird!

In the middle of it all when he had just like...chicken commando crawled between two levels on a shelf so I couldn't get him I was thinking, 'Stupid bird!' and then it occurred to me that he couldn't be *that* stupid since I hadn't caught him yet. :)

The Naming of the Beasts

As anybody with pets knows, naming them can sometimes be the hardest part. They all have their own personalities, quirks, and you don't want to just give them a generic name.

Right. In the beginning, there was Buddy (R.I.P.). Buddy was a shelter dog, and he came with his name. He had enough trouble adjusting to a new environment, so his name was never changed, but it fit him. He was Dad's best buddy his whole life.



After Buddy came Loki (R.I.P.). Loki was mine. We found her in a garbage can, and brought her home. I'd wanted a cat for *so long*, and I was sick all the time back then, so we bonded right away. At the time we got her, I was big into Norse mythology, and I have this affinity for trickster gods. (and Tricksters who are really Archangels in witness protection, but that's another issue...) She was devilish and a *huge* trouble maker. So I named her Loki.



Then came Yoda. She was a shelter cat, and we decided to call her Yoda because, well, we're all Star Wars fans, and as a kitten, her ears were insanely disproportionate to her head. She grew into them though...



Then came YumYum. She's another shelter cat. At the time, I was reading the Cat Who...series, and YumYum has that Siamese cat yowl. (also, she's a bit of a pig...)


For my sister's birthday one year, we picked up Piglet. Piggy is a chihuahua that we got from a rescue. She was just this little tiny puppy, and because her fur was still puppy thin and translucent, she looked pink! She snorted when she ate, and due to a birth defect, her little stub of a tail kind of corkscrews a bit at the end. So Piglet.




My mom got Chewy that same year. She's a Pomeranian, and her full name is actually Chewbacca. Again, Star Wars fans, and since Yoda is kind of my mothers cat...plus, Chewy is, obviously, very fluffy and furry. Though we didn't know it until a bit later, Chewy is also a *chewer*, so the name worked that way too.



Baby was my birthday present. He's a Shiba Inu, which is basically a miniaturized Akita. I've long wanted an Akita, but at the time we didn't have a fenced in yard, and it didn't seem fair to have such a big dog and not have room for him to run. So we got Baby, who was only supposed to get to 25 lbs. Turns out he's a bit of a throwback to the Akita side, because he's 35 lbs, and much larger than Shiba Inu's are supposed to get. I figured, since he was mine, that I could name him whatever I wanted to. But every name I came up with was vetoed, and it took so long to name him, and we'd been calling him 'baby dog' in the mean time, that he decided that that was his name. So he's my Baby.


Munchkin is the orange cat in the picture below. He was brought into my work by one of the photographers. Her sister had found him in a ditch. At the time, he was so small that he literally fit into the palm of one hand. I brought him home when everybody else was out, so that they were confronted with his cuteness, they had no choice but to accept him! I named him Munchkin because he was so tiny, but we call him Munchy. He likes to eat paper, and has actually stolen, off of peoples plates, a pop tart, half a sub, and a chicken breast.

Mini is the black cat in the picture. She came with Maxi, from the shelter. We got them both after Hurricane Charley, and at the time we were housing my friends cat Isis because their roof had been torn off. Isis was a pure black cat, and when you put the two of them together, it looked like Mini was Isis's kitten! So we called her Mini Isis, or just Mini.

Maxi, below, is a *huge*, muscular cat. I suspect that he's actually part dog. :) His full name is actually Maximus Rex. (Guess who named him....) Because he was so much bigger than Mini, and he has this attitude that he's the head honcho, and watch out. :)



I believe you're all familiar with Tractor, who came to live with us not that long ago. He's another rescue dog, and he came with the name, but it just fits him somehow...


Next is Rocket, the rooster. Who also came with his name, and really, what else do you call a rooster?


Which brings me to the reason for the post. Meet the newest member of the family:

She doesn't have a name yet. My sister says that someone at her work found her under the hood of their car. She's been to the vet, and is about 6 weeks old, and healthy. We've got a list up on the fridge of name suggestions. My Dad suggested 'Penzoil', with 'Penny' for short. I suggested 'Ripley' and 'Newt' (a million nerd points if you can guess what movie I was watching the night before we got her). 'Penny' is actually growing on us, but we haven't reached a consensus just yet.

We Now Have....

a rooster.



His name is Rocket Man, and we got him from friends of my parents. They apparently had one too many roosters, and the other rooster was three times Rocket Man's size, and was picking on him. So they decided to either find him a new home, or ship him off with some other chickens on Saturday to be butchered. He apparently started life as a show rooster named 'Buttercup'.

My parents went over to see him last night, and, shock of shocks, he came home with them. He's currently living in a temporary pen/shed until we get proper chicken things. Now, I didn't want the rooster, and I'm all worried about him.

Does he need a girlfriend? Is he going to fly away? Is he going to get eaten?

So, hopefully we'll still have a rooster when I get home tonight. Because, while I could have lived without a rooster, now that he's here, I have the need to make sure he's happy and healthy. *sigh*

I can see that this is the beginning of a downhill slope. Next thing you know we'll have goats and pigs and things. And more chickens. Plus, my sister wants a duck. What're we going to do with a duck? She also wanted a horse, but I am *not* going to deal with a horse. Nope. Lovely, but *lots* of work, and you just know she's not going to get up at the crack of dawn to feed him. (She doesn't get up until *noonish*.)