One renegade chicken

Renegade chicken. She’s SO idependent

I had recently started letting my chickens out of their pen to roam the yard.  I have a privacy fence, and after blocking the undersides of all the gates, not including hawks,  it was a pretty safe place for them to roam if I didn’t let the dog out of his pen.

So I let them out and watched to see where they hung out.  For the most part they stayed at the back of the property which is where thiere pen and nests are at.  They scratched everywhere, the compost pile was a favorite, as was under the flatbed and trailers in the backyard.  I introduced them to the winter garden which had nothing in it they could destroy.

They had a whole lotta chicken fun.  And I cut down on the feed bill quite a lot.  They got bugs, and grass, and seeds to eat all day long.  They got to roll in the dirt, flap their wings, run a good distance too.  But when I’d come out to take a head count, (I’ve got six hens), there was always one not with the flock that I would have to search for.

Today I went out to check on them and that renegade chicken was at it again, only this time I couldn’t seem to get her to come when I called, even though five of the hens were eating chopped apples and leftover spaghetti as a treat.  I came back out later, I heard what I thought was something from under one of the junk cars in the yard.  Worried that maybe a racoon or possum had started living in a trunk, I checked.

Nope . . . no chicken.   And I’m worried about her because she isn’t staying where I can find her.

I went around and looked under all the vehicles, the trailers, anywhere one might find a chicken hiding.  And low and behold, under the BACK side of a trailer, was this very silent chicken.  She wasn’t unhappy, or hurt.  She wasn’t laying an egg.  What she had done was to scratch out a hole in the dirt under the trailer and hunker her body into it.  She didn’t seem to be nesting.

What she was doing was to just plain take a spa dirt bath. She was happily contented to just wiggle around in the cold dirt and bathe in it.  I mean she was in total chicken heaven too.  Her eyes were glazed with this enjoyment I’ve not seen anywhere so intense.

And she seems to just be that type of personality, a chicken that is a renegade, independent “doesn’t need the flock” kind of gal.  But I think I need to mark her with a scarlet “R”.