Hen Spa

The last 24 hours has been all about hens, because I happen to own three chickens that could each star in their own reality TV show.

Portia, for example, has gone very broody since I went on my trip, and her normally sunny disposition has turned positively pre-menstrual.  She's being aggressive with the other chickens, nest protective, and less than sociable with me.  At first I thought she might be egg-bound or stressed from the changing temperatures (it skyrocketed to 102 on Monday, only to plummet into the high 60's by Tuesday, and the nights were downright cold).  So I brought her inside, kept her warm, and gave her some electrolytes.  She had a spa day, in other words. Today, she seems fine.  Still broody, but fine.  Back out into the run she goes.

Broody

Ellen, Portia's sister, needed a bath today, continuing our spa treatment of our hens.  She is also Buff Orpington, and has a thick, fluffy behind (Hey! Just like me!). But, unlike me, she tends to get messy back in her hinterlands, and if I don't want eggs with fecal smears on them, she needs cleaning up occasionally.  Which means she goes to the Hen Spa, a.k.a. our bathroom, for a little TLC.

Show and tell (or it is show and tail?) section!!

Here you see Ellen getting her feathers wet for the sake of hygiene.  I don't know why her vent feathers hang onto dung the way they do, but I happen to like my eggs dung-free. 

Embarrassment?  Remorse?  Exasperation?  Name the emotion of that towel-wrapped chicken!

The avian Brazilian Butt BlowOut

Red is the Nicky Minaj of the trio.  Bossy, brassy and almost always unpleasant.  She will launch a rooster-style attack on you if you turn your back on her, and you can never, ever enter the chicken coop wearing flip flops or shoes with no socks, unless you want some permanent ankle or toe tattoos in the shape of a large hole, roughly the size of a chicken beak.  I don't know why she is this way, feeling a rage that puts her in an almost rigor-mortis state of anger, 24 hours a day.  She awakens angry and she retires at night angry.  But if she had any underworld connections, I'd be in cement shoes somewhere off San Luis Pier by now, I am certain.  No spa for Red.  I can't afford the loss of blood that would come from pampering her.

She would just as soon kill you as look at you.

Now that the chickens are tended to, I am going into town for some interaction with beings who don't have feathers.  Gotta be easier than this.