Watching Chickens

People take the life of a chicken for granted.

Watching their daily routines I have grown an appreciation for them.

Cookie is my special chicken, black and white just like my favorite cookies.

I watch her lay in the tall green grass, she looks at her rooster beside her before locking eyes with me then back to her gentleman. 

She spreads her black wing out as she rolls to one side, effectively sun bathing on this warm April day.

The wind blows gently rustling her tail feathers. The rooster beside her stands up and immediately starts to crow to get her attention.  It works of course.  She stands up and he starts to dance around her.

Cookie is content, she starts to look around her feet, pecking at the grass and leaves.

Her mate has yet to stop crowing but she is not bothered, she keeps pecking at whatever is tasty in the grass. She walks a step or two and is pecking the ground some more before settling back down to resume sun bathing.

Closing her eyes listening to her rooster spill his lungs out as she is at peace.

Eyes closed, breathing softy,  in and out, in and out. She opens them to find her mate has gone silent and has turned still as a statue. She stands up in concern, and she sees it. A massive eagle overhead looking for a meal. It's to late to hide, it's to late to move. One wrong step and she is dinner. She stays perfectly still and watches, and waits.

The eagle is flying so high that I'm amazed at Cookie’s eye sight being able to spot such a far away predator.

Cookie stays in her statue state, not moving, if not for the up and down of her breast bone you would swear she was a garden decoration. 

I look up at the threat, I hear Eagles have excellent eyesight so I glare at him hoping he sees me.

The Eagle circles over head slowly, I count each full circle for the heck of it.  One....two..oh. A raven appears and starts to swoop at the Eagles head, the Eagle doesn't make a full 3rd circle, instead making a half one and flying over my property. 

I look back at my chickens when looking up gets to hard and focus my eyes back on them on the ground.  Eyes watery from the sun I indirectly looked at.

Cookie and her mate are walking the grass pecking and searching for bugs, grass and grit.

I relax in my seat and sip my bottled soda I had briefly forgotten about.

Cookie walks up to her sister Pep who is sun bathing in the sun light having left the coop, she is my broody chicken at the moment so I am pleased to see her out and doing some self care.

Cookie gently pecks Pep's head as if fixing her hair trying to make her more presentable. Pep just let her, not bothering to move from her grassy bed.

The crowing next to me detracts my eyes from Cookie to the noise. My Rooster, Spy, is crowing only 2 feet from me. Even at such a short statute he has an earth shattering crow.

I put my arm out to offer him a peach but he side steps away stuck in a dance with wanting to run to his girls and flirt or keep me under a watchful eye.

I don't move my arm, unlike most people I have tamed my chickens he would take the offer soon or later.

I sip more at my soda as I watch him shuffle his feet in thought. He is quickly on my arm and climbs all the way up my arm and is suddenly by my head and let's out a massive crow.

I guess I deserve that. He jumps down to run to his girls to quickly flirt while he is all wild up. I am trying to hear out of my left ear again as it rings from the abuse.

Pep isn't interested in his dance and gets up to slowly make her way back to the coop ready to go back to her eggs.

Spy stands confused as Pep walks away from him, he lets out a sound like 'What?' And switches his dancing to Cookie who isn't in the mood and pecks him in the head making him stop instantly and made him start pecking the ground to find his love something tasty,  maybe as an apology in chicken language.

Cookie didn't seem to notice his apology as she walked away and ignored his clucks to venture off to find a nice sand bath near the flower bed.

She started to dig a hole and laid herself into it and used her beak to toss the sand around her then shaking her feathers while laying down to better toss sand to her back and body. Cookie looked like she couldn't be more happy.

Cookie was making noises as she kept tossing ans shaking sand all over her and Spy slowly walked over to join her. He laid basically on top of her and used her sand to cover his own feathers and stood up to shake his feathers clean. Where Cookie was enjoying a long dust bath Spy was content with a short one. He decided marching around his lady crowing was a better use of his time.

I took a long drink of my soda to empty it and looked up to the sky to make sure there were not any dangers lurking around my chickens had not noticed in their bliss and began to fold up my folding chair ready to let my live stock enjoy the rest of the day without my hovering.  

I picked up my folded chair and made my way to the house. Spy saw me leaving and ran to me with a caw. I put my chair down and picked him up happy my rooster isn't like others and likes my personal attention. Giving him a kiss and a "Be safe." I put him down and watched him run back to his hen Cookie and began to do his little dance to impress her even if she still wasn't interested and just wanted to be in the dirt. 

I picked my chair back up and walked inside, the door clicking closed behind me.