These are our six newish hens safe in the chookyard, with our rooster, Tina Turner, outside the yard but wanting to visit them. He, and our other three roosters, have not been given visitation rights yet and I have advised the hens not to make eye contact with any of the guys until I have given them the ‘birds & bees’ talk, hence this photo!
Oh yes, and they are all also watching the goose olympics.
In the interests of equalizing the male/female ratio here, I have now purchased six pullets (‘teenage’ hens about to lay eggs) and have confined them to the original chook pen where they are adjusting with a mixture of trepidation and delight. Surrounded by peafowl and guinnea fowl – who fly in and out of the pen whenever they feel like it – the six new chooks are experiencing a kind of culture shock I guess. All four roosters are not allowed into the pen yet so they cockadoodledoo outside the pen constantly but they don’t seem particularly amorous, more curious – maybe even alarmed.
One of my BFFs (being acronymically challenged, I didn’t even know what this meant until last week) helped me pick the new chooks up and gave me some chook advice, as she has had chooks for years.
Daffy wants to join the newbies since Dotty, his ‘wife’ seems to have disappeared. I suspect she is sitting on eggs somewhere but have not been able to find her and Daffy quacks all day for her – his loneliness is gutwrenching. I hope she hasn’t been taken by that fox.
So – another new poultry mini-chapter. Let’s hope it all works out because I want eggs again!
FUNNY INCIDENT 1
Anthony and I just had a nostalgic talk on the phone about the Captain Stirling hotel (where he thought he was last night). He remembers vividly his delusional episode which I find rather remarkable. I remind him of our stay there when I was heavily pregnant.
Me: You took me to the cheapest hotel in Perth, with a room that didn’t even have a bathroom so I had get up and go to a communal bathroom a million times during the night because of being pregnant and needing to use the loo. Your were such a tightarse!
Anthony: I thought it was quite romantic.
Me: You really ARE deluded!
Anthony: Remember bumping into Ed in the bar? [distant relation around Anthony’s age]
Me: How could I forget that! Remember how we didn’t understand why the bar was so crowded with middle-aged women?
Anthony: And Ed told us is was ‘Grab a granny night’!
Me: It was appalling! So why did you think you were there last night?
Anthony: Because it looked exactly like the Captain Stirling.
Me: So you’re okay today?
Anthony: Yes, I’m not there today.
Me: Where – at the Captain Stirling?
Anthony: Yes, I’m back here.
Me: Okay, I’ll be in later – I love you.
Anthony: [mumbles incoherently – this is happening a lot now]
Me: I can’t hear you – what did you say?
Anthony: I love you.
Me: Well it’s about time you said that!
Anthony: I couldn’t remember the words.
You gotta laugh!
FUNNY INCIDENT 2:
Ming and I have the usual mother and son conflicts and after a particularly horrible argument, which Ming later insisted on analysing every nuance of until we were reconciled (rather exhausting), we had this conversation-
Ming: Mum, I don’t want to see any of my friends for awhile.
Me: Why? What’s wrong?
Ming: Nothing. It’s just that I want to work on repairing our relationship.
Me: You really are unique, kid!
Ming: I try.
We both laugh!
FUNNY INCIDENT 3
Adolescent peacock 1 [we have too many for me to name them!]: Is Julie watching?
Adolescent peacock 2: She’s trying to take pictures you idiot! Turn around.
White adolescent peacock: I think I’ll leave you guys to it.
Angelina: Those two peacocks are getting very cocky aren’t they, Malay.
Malay: Hey, watch your language!
Tina Turner: Don’t worry, New Kid, around here this is considered normal behaviour.
New Kid: How do they do that feather thing?
Tina Turner: I don’t know and I don’t care!
Phoenix 1: Their need to flaunt themselves deeply saddens me. It’s a sign of the times. I prefer to let my beauty speak for itself.
Adolescent peacock 2: I told you to turn around. Do you think Julie wants a picture of your bum?
Adolescent peacock 1: I can’t turn around because you’re in the way. I’ll try again tomorrow – I’m exhausted.
New Kid: I’m having a bit of trouble adjusting to this place, Malay.
Malay: Don’t worry, New Kid, I was born here and I’ll look after you.
Angelina: It’s a bird blog primarily, of course, but Julie keeps going off topic.
Queenie: I’ve noticed that. She keeps blogging about silly old men!
King: Like me?
Queenie: Darling, never – your tail feathers will grow back soon!
Baby Turkey: I have now held this pose for several hours but Julie still hasn’t noticed!
Diamond: Me too.
Guinneas: I’m sure she’ll get back on topic soon. We always do.
Phoenix 1: She hasn’t taken much notice of me lately either, which is a bit hurtful.
Godfrey: I suggest we all start biting her. Watch and learn.
Emery 2: Noooooooooooooo!
Tina Turner: Yes – Godfrey is right!
Roosters are the ‘unsung’ of the poultry world because they’re not very necessary. In fact, they are completely unnecessary if you just want eggs and, even if you want to breed chickens, you only need a single rooster for a whole bunch of chooks. People are constantly advertising free roosters or cheap roosters and some of the ads read a bit like this: Ten roosters FREE, wonderful breeders, lovely natures, not overly noisy – seller is willing to travel up to 1,000 kms for FREE delivery. Be quick or you will miss out! Well, you get the picture.
However, if roosters are re-perceived as birds, rather than as poultry, they become quite a different category altogether. (I’m thinking of writing an article called “In defense of the rooster” for the local poultry magazine so this is a practice run – hehe!)
You see at the moment we have four roosters and no hens (chooks). Most of the chooks were killed during that dark night of the fox several months ago, and we lost the remaining few, one by one, until only the roosters were left. Here is a picture of Malay and No-Name about to go to bed. They sleep in that tree, high up in its branches, safe from the fox.
And here is Tina Turner (who has featured in previous posts), wondering whether to join the peacocks on the car. He eventually decides that the table might be a better roost.
And here is our relatively new rooster (given to us) on his first day here, not sure whether he is being scrutinized or worshipped by the peafowl. NK (short for New Kid) has adapted very well and the other three roosters adore him, so much so that he has been given his own special bedtime branch in the tree.
All four roosters have their own personalities:
Malay (raised by his mother under a shed here) is big, strong and loud, and loves flying.
No-Name is shy, deferential and always waits his turn when I am hand-feeding them.
Tina Turner is vain and aggressive; he particularly likes to fly at my legs and claw me but I have now decided that this is his version of a hug.
NK is gradually becoming the head rooster for some reason and the others seem to think he is a kind of god.
“Why do you have so many roosters?” poultry people ask me.
“I just love them,” I say.
Note: We are getting hens soon!
What on earth is it?
I’m not sure!
It’s quite ugly.
I think it’s quite cute!
I think we might be scaring it, guys – c’mon let it settle in.
Yes, okay, but what is it?
I’M A ROOSTER, YOU WEIRDOS!
Husband has always adored Tina Turner and that song, “We don’t need another hero!” It’s easy to find on youtube but here is one link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1FPK5-Rm38
I hope the real Tina Turner doesn’t mind that we named a rooster (who we thought was a hen) after her, but the resemblance was uncanny and our Tina has the very same feistiness!
I rang Husband in the nursing lodge a moment ago and asked him to confirm that it was the Tina Turner song, “We don’t need another hero” that he loved so much. I even sang a bit of it on the phone which made us both laugh. He said yes.
Here are the lyrics to this famous song:“We Don’t Need Another Hero”
Some time ago now, doudou, a fellow blogger (doudoubirds.wordpress.com/) sculpted me some birds, and they were brilliant – three emu chicks, one galah and a bluejay.
Now doudou is going to sculpt Tina Turner! In case you don’t know who Tina is, he is one of our roosters. Another thing you might not know is that Tina attacks me all the time (possibly because, until he grew up, I thought he was a girl). So, in good-for-evil mode, I have decided to allow Tina’s entrance into doudou’s hall of fame because I am hoping that giving Tina Turner a turn will endear him to me – ha!
The only problem is that Godfrey finds this very difficult because, as my only other attacker, he feels it should be him who is sculpted first but as I told him this morning, whilst extricating my ankle from his biting beak, Tina was here long before he arrived!
I do try to pat him with one hand and use my other hand to fend him off but it isn’t working very well so please, doudou, could you sculpt Godfrey first? He is terribly jealous….
Tina Turner’s arrogance is breathtaking. Not only does he dominate the picnic table where I chop up the cabbages for all of the birds, he constantly attacks me. He waits until I have my back turned and then whammo, I have a rooster attached to my leg. What I find mystifying about these attacks is that when I shake him off, he then takes bread or cabbage from my hand.
So I have decided to teach Tina a lesson in humility:
Hahahaha!
Tina Turner (Araucana rooster): Don’t come any closer, Phoenix.
Phoenix (Golden pheasant): It’s okay, I’m leaving!
Phoenix: Hi guys!
Peacocks: Hi Phoenix, ‘bye Phoenix.
Phoenix: No problems – I get it; I’ll just dance away on my own.
Phoenix: Don’t come any closer, Julie.
Me: I know what you mean, Phoenix.
jmgoyder 