The Chicken...Our Chicken...I guess...

I am NOT a chicken person, but we have one, a hen actually. We don't purposely have a chicken/hen, it just appeared. A few weeks ago I looked out the back door and saw our two newborn calves lying under a tree in the field west of the house. The cows were grazing close by. It was a nice, peaceful, pastoral scene in the early morning. As I stood there I noticed a bird walking toward the calves, only it wasn't a bird, it was a chicken! Suddenly mother cows were on "Red Alert". Heads came up and one of them charged the chicken, chasing it back under the barbed wire fence. The other cows rushed over and they all surrounded the calves, anxiously looking toward the spot where they last saw the "dangerous creature". It struck me that they had never seen a chicken before.

Later it reappeared. The cows watched it and made sure it kept its distance. They were uneasy, but left it alone. It kept showing up every few days. One morning I went out and took pictures of it. I called it...you know..."chick,chick,chick" and it came to me. Shouldn't have done that, because my compassionate side appeared and now I began to worry about the chicken. Was it lonely? Did it need some chicken feed? Where did it sleep? What did I care! I don't like chickens! Right? Right...maybe. She is kind of a pretty chicken...

It's been several weeks now and she is still here. it has rained a lot and I didn't see her for several days. I thought maybe she drowned, maybe coyotes got her, maybe...Then there she was again. Now she chases bugs while the cows graze. I watched her walking all around them yesterday. I thought surely Apache or one of the cows or surely Clyde would kick her into the next county, but they didn't even seem to notice her.

What will she eat when it gets cold and there aren't any grasshoppers or bugs. Maybe I should get some chicken scratch. Where will she sleep when it gets cold? I wonder where she lays her eggs. Probably in the poison oak...after all chickens are not very smart!