This morning, and by morning I mean about 3 in the afternoon (thank you insomnia) I woke up and went out to deal with the chickens. I grabbed the egg basket and the feed, and wandered out to the coop to deal with the noisy ladies. Things were fairly uneventful at first, one of the Reds got pushy which isn’t unusual, Felix (the Bantam rooster) was strutting around and being chased off by the hens. Life was easy and peaceful, until I noticed that Star (the oldest of my Granny’s roosters) wasn’t in his usual spot.

            Usually, Star will stand off by himself and wait for me or Granny to drop food beside him like he’s some kind of royalty, which I suppose he kind of is. But he wasn’t there, and I didn’t see him until I went to collect the eggs. The white and black rooster was hanging upside down from the wire of the chicken coop’s door. I will admit, at first I believed him dead and let out a little bit of a squeal. Star then, frightened by the strange noise I emitted, began to flap. I spent the next 10 minutes holding the angry bird, dodging pecks and kicks from his beak and good leg, and hoping my Grandmother would show up while I called or help in what equates to the middle of nowhere. Luckily, she happened to pull into the driveway, and came over to help me free the pained and now horribly irate cock.

            Star, who had already injured that same leg, hopped along pathetically until we moved him outside the usual enclosure (mostly to protect him from the hens, being the lowest rung of the social ladder in a chicken-coop can be dangerous if you’re already injured), set him up with food, water and shelter, and are now hoping for the best. He’s pretty fierce, so I don’t think he’ll be eaten by owls, but there are raccoons and such out here in the black (ah Firefly thank you for being so goram quotable). I’ll update tomorrow on Star’s condition. Here’s wishing the best for that incredibly stupid bird.

            Anyway, the real question is how he got there in the first place. Granny figures that, being already injured and therefore on the bottom of the pecking order, one of the other roosters was chasing him in the coop and Star jumped and got himself stuck. That doesn’t quite explain the blood on his crest, but I suppose it’s possible that either Dude or Felix decided to be a right ass (probably Felix) and pecked at him while he hung upside down like some demented Easter piñata. I’m hoping it’s not something more sinister, and was, in fact, just the Bantam being as ass. Though it may have just as easily been one of the Red Hens, they’re pushy and kind of mean.