A few of the tiny velociraptors or chickens like to hang out on the couch. The chicken lady has several different breeds chickens. She has laying hens, which are the ladies that are breeds like Leg horns, Rhode Island Reds, Orpingtons and the list goes on. They are in a lovely gated community complete with pond, trees, and plenty of bugs. She also has free range Bantam chickens that run all over the yard. They are just like regular chickens but much smaller in size.
It's really cool to see all the different sizes, shapes and shapes of eggs. The shell color is pretty cool when you can make a dozen with brown, blue, green, speckled and white eggs. We call them a rainbow pack. Makes you wonder about the commercial industry. How many eggs get thrown away because we are looking for the perfect egg.
Anyway, those little guys are not fenced in and can pretty much go where ever they feel like it. Some wander up by the road and do get run over occasionally. they head back to the woods and then a fox might see a snack. Population control.
They do have a coop, but quite a few of them would rather hang out around the house and lay eggs under the porch, under the bushes, in the flower garden, on a table, in the recycle bin, or j
randomly on the floor. Every spring she is bound to see babies that just appear out of the fields and under the porch with half a dozen babies. At night the ones that don't go into the coop roost in trees instead. That does make them vulnerable to night time critters. She told me about an owl once or two that picked off a few. When an owl hits tree branches its sounds like a tree crashing into a million pieces. Very scary.
My mom has a perfect full length porch facing the woods so she can sit back an enjoy what nature has to offer. flowers bloom, birds sing, see a deer or two. Its breezy and calming to stretch out on the couch... until the chickens found the couch. Usually the ones that come onto the porch are ones that were born on it. This is Smudge, she happens to be one of the bantam hens that my son was around when she came out of the egg and he named her.
We go through this ever year. In the winter she buttons up the porch, and puts up framed plastic to protect from the wind. A handful of her chickens end up hanging out to stay out of the snow. Its keeps them from being lunch on most cases. Every spring she has to go through and pull off all the furniture and scrub down the porch to reclaim it for human use again.
The really creepy part that always gets me is when they turn around on the couch or chair and stare at us through the window. The TV is right next to the window and you can't help but get distracted. Chickens staring you down is really unnerving. Good luck sleeping after that visual.
