Speaking Chicken

Marilyn perched in our backyard.

Marilyn the rooster has been acting very “rooster-y” lately. He ruffles his feathers, struts, stiffens his neck, cock-a-doodle-doos, and all the other “cocky” behaviors. That’s all fine and dandy, but when he pecks he pecks hard and he is not the friendly guy he used to be. Every one of us has had a run-in with him. He is great at protecting the hens and he is beautiful to look at, but the kids are nervous to be outside with him and that pretty much stinks. I had an incident with him on Saturday where he pecked my leg when I was feeding the hens and I wanted to punt him. He and I just went back and forth for a bit with some weird sounds and I went into the house with white feathers all over me. Later that afternoon the kids went camping and I was alone. I had eaten some popcorn earlier and thought I would share the rest with the girls since it is one of their favorite snacks. Marilyn stayed back which is unusual for him. I saw his neck feathers ruffle and his wings flap, he was giving me the “eye”. The girls were eating the popcorn and I was watching Marilyn. All of the sudden, I flapped my arms to mock him a bit and all the chickens hit the woods in a flurry of feathers. I was laughing so hard. Is that what it takes? Flapping my arms? No one was home to share my chicken communication discovery with. I can imagine people will drive by our house and think we are all some sort of crazy when they see us all flapping our arms all over the place.