Although our Little Roo, Hecky Pecky and Huffy Puffy all survived the barn coming down on top of their coop in the tornado, only Huffy remains on the "farm" today. The sole survivor of two nights of carnage by a dog someone dropped off to starve, she is starting to show signs not only that she is ready to sleep outside again but also of loneliness.
Huffy Puffy will have a coop to sleep in tonight or tomorrow. She's been sleeping in the mudroom in a puppy kennel since last June. In five years, she has never brooded but last week we discovered her brooding behind the a/c unit.
I hate to admit it but I will miss seeing her walk in the back door at 6:30 each night and go straight into the kennel where her food and water bowels waited. I will miss seeing her following the dogs and cats around the back yard getting her companionship from them. I will not however miss the daily pulling and pushing to get that puppy kennel (designed for a lab puppy so not a teeny little kennel) out the back door and down the steps and off the patio for cleaning.
Now we have to decide how to go about bringing her some companions; our choices are a) bring in little chicks to raise in the mudroom for about 6 weeks or b) ask a friend with an abundance of hens to provide us with two or three of them and go through a week or two of introduction so that they don't pick on her.
Any chicken folk out there with advice?
On thinking it through a bit and doing some reading, I think the best thing would be to just see if I can adopt one young hen from friends. Checking that possibility out!
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