Wednesday 10 October 2012

Black Sheep

Maybe you have a cat that purposely knocks stuff off the counter when she's peeved with you.  Or a dog that will pee on your bed when you leave it alone too long.

We have 2 such critters: Blackberry, a chicken, and Stella, a sheep.

Blackberry is a very unassuming hen.  She's a consistent layer of large perfect brown eggs.  She is a Barred Rock X  (cross with what, I have no idea), and as such, very ordinary looking.  You can pick her up without a fuss and take an egg out from underneath her whilst she's still on the nest.

Don't let her fool you.  This chicken is an escape artist.  She can open unlatched gates without batting an eye.

After I let the sheep out into the pasture in the morning, I close their pasture gate and then open the gate between the chickens' yard and the sheep pen, so the chickens can effectively "clean up" after the sheep.  Works well... most of the time.

Last week, the sheep (mostly the aforementioned Stella) decided to loiter in their pen for a while before going into pasture.  Fine, I thought.  But I forgot that the latch on the gate between the chickens and the sheep is broken.  And I forgot about Blackberry.

I was greeted at the top pasture gate several hours later by Blackberry and her cronies, 3 other mixed breed hens and one adventurous "old lady."  (We have 2 "old ladies" -- Sex-a-link hens that have retired.  I.E. - don't lay anymore and on a "real farm" would have been chicken soup a long time ago.)
Caught in the act -- with accomplices!

Blackberry will poke her head through the holes in the gate's wire and push it open so she can escape.

And, she's Beep's mom.  (Beep is now a house chicken who perches on shoulders and listens to bed time stories.  Geesh.)

Bad Chicken.  Thankfully, she'll go in without fanfare if I have the feed bucket in hand.  I'm on to you, lady.

And then there's Stella.  She is, literally and figuratively, the Black Sheep.
Stella will linger in the sheep pen and refuse to go out to pasture.  She will refuse to come into the barn at night and lure the others back out of the barn.  When I want her to go up to the top pasture, she'll go down, and vs.  She head butts my son.  Or, tries to, anyway.  She'll be the one making noise if she's not happy with something while the other sheep just accept it.

B-b-baaaaaa-d sheep.  (Ouch. Lame Joke!)

She keeps me on my toes, this one.  It'll be interesting to see what her babies are like in the spring.




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