Well, our 2 and a half are doing well. Volunteer hen is freely expressing her opinions about the speed with which treats arrive.
The rooster is still dumb as rocks, but still my buddy.
The true pet hen has found a new friend.
My kid got a stuffed chicken with little chicks that can be zipped into cloth eggs, which can be taken out of, or shoved up the plush hen’s rear. Adorable.
Well a few days ago, my kid comes into the living room with the plushie. The real hen had not encountered it before.
Well, our glorious little sassosaur starts trilling and purring, and paying allll kinds of attention to this new “hen” in the house. Now, this hen and my kid have a rather dubious agreement going on where the hen will peck the kid until the kid does what the bird wants. Obviously, this is like negotiating with captain Pike in his beep-beep chair, only with more pecks and squawking.
After a few minutes of happy chicken noises, this hen waggles her tail, gets riiiight up on both the kid and the plush hen and settles in for a nap while doing those sweet little trills that hens do when they’re with their flock. Which, the apex predator normally does while snuggling with me, but the kid is too fidgety for that normally. But stuffed hen bridged that gap.
Since then, when she comes in for the evening, she starts looking around for her new buddy, and will peck the kid’s feet until she goes and gets the plush.
However! This newfound friendship does not extend to the little butt chicks. When those are present, no pecks are spared. They either go right back up their mom’s butt, or out of sight otherwise.
Well, our 2 and a half are doing well. Volunteer hen is freely expressing her opinions about the speed with which treats arrive.
The rooster is still dumb as rocks, but still my buddy.
The true pet hen has found a new friend.
My kid got a stuffed chicken with little chicks that can be zipped into cloth eggs, which can be taken out of, or shoved up the plush hen’s rear. Adorable.
Well a few days ago, my kid comes into the living room with the plushie. The real hen had not encountered it before.
Well, our glorious little sassosaur starts trilling and purring, and paying allll kinds of attention to this new “hen” in the house. Now, this hen and my kid have a rather dubious agreement going on where the hen will peck the kid until the kid does what the bird wants. Obviously, this is like negotiating with captain Pike in his beep-beep chair, only with more pecks and squawking.
After a few minutes of happy chicken noises, this hen waggles her tail, gets riiiight up on both the kid and the plush hen and settles in for a nap while doing those sweet little trills that hens do when they’re with their flock. Which, the apex predator normally does while snuggling with me, but the kid is too fidgety for that normally. But stuffed hen bridged that gap.
Since then, when she comes in for the evening, she starts looking around for her new buddy, and will peck the kid’s feet until she goes and gets the plush.
However! This newfound friendship does not extend to the little butt chicks. When those are present, no pecks are spared. They either go right back up their mom’s butt, or out of sight otherwise.