Good morning! Ducks, you’re in the way. Huh? What’s this? Is there a set time when you don’t come out? Come on out — look, the door’s open! And Basil is running the wrong way again today.
Cho is molting
Everyone, look at Cho! Cho is changing feathers, so the back and wings are all spiky — and grumpy. New feathers are coming in, and that hurts. So if you see a chicken growing new feathers (molting), don’t touch it; leave it in peace. Protein-rich food helps too, and then shiny feathers like this one’s will grow in. Cheer Cho on!
Third-generation chick opening
Now, the very first chick opening for our third generation! Happy, you don’t need to come in. Come on out! Good morning, Pi-chan. You too — or is it just you? You’ve got poop on you, I know. And lots of stuff stuck on your nose. No, don’t eat that! Here they come… and now they’ve gone back in. Oh no. I haven’t even introduced them yet!
Here’s the leader of the third group, Sanji. Sanji was good friends with Niji (whose name sounds like “two o’clock”), so this one became Sanji, like “three o’clock.” Usually I just say San-chan. San-chan, don’t climb on people’s heads. Off you go!
Next is Pi-chan, who came to us from someone else. She was found as a chick, and already had the name Pi-chan. The person wanted to keep her but couldn’t, so she came here.
This one is the chick of a wild chicken I caught near here. Its sibling suddenly died of a heart attack, so to keep it from being lonely, it’s in with everyone else.
Two mother-and-chick families
These three came from a residential area where I catch chickens: a mother and three chicks. If a mother and chicks stay together the whole time, the mother can get so stressed that she stops caring for them and lets chicks die, so we separate them early. (Waikiki, you’re so big compared to the chicks!) The mother, from a neighborhood deep in the mountains, is beautiful. She has a name, given by the lady who brought her, but I’ve forgotten it — I only remember names I chose myself. I’ll have to ask again.
And this wild hen I caught came with her chick. There were three at first, but the mother was poorly nourished and there were health problems from the start, and we lost the others. Somehow, though, mother and chick have both become friendly with me. Why? You were running around like crazy until just the other day!
So that’s our third-generation chick team. Thank you very much for watching!