Goosed by a Chicken!

9/5/10 The egg laying is become more regular, they have finally started using their nesting box and the egg size is getting bigger. One of the girls must lay in the morning as when we wake up around seven we hear her squawking up a storm. It is particularly loud in the bathroom which is directly above the basement coop so the noise goes right through the air ducts. My mom was rather startled the other day when she was in the bathroom and the chickens started crowing! We have read that each chicken lays a distinct egg color and shape. We have figured out that it is big crown who lays the speckled eggs and Cluck who lays the light brown eggs. I am not sure Scabby is laying yet. She seems to be the lowest in the pecking order. None of the chickens are particularly bright but poor Scabby is defiantly the slowest but she is never mean. Cluck is rather mean. She loves to peck at Jeff’s ankles or anyone who tries to pet her. We weren’t sure what to do about her pecking problem until we read on several sites that if you hit them with a rolled newspaper you establish yourself as higher in the pecking order. I felt awful to do this but eventually Cluck made me bleed just one too many times and I finally hit her with an Economist Magazine (hey we want our chickens to at least be educated if we have to hit them magazines!) It seems to have worked and she is much less likely to peck now. It is funny because both Jeff and I can clearly see the look in her eyes when she is thinking about pecking either one of us. The chickens still peck at shoes laces but that is only because they think they are worms. The other day Jeff was bent down tending to our grape vines when one of the chickens came up behind him and pecked him right on the butt! The other two immediately came over and did the same thing. We think they thought his belt loops were worms but I was laughing so hard I couldn’t help Jeff and he had his hands full with the vines!