Hello from Chicken Paradise Hawaii. My cold is still hanging on.
Meet Yellow
This slightly cluttered spot is in front of the smaller coop entrance. It’s part storage, and it’s where I keep the weaker birds. Underneath lives a rooster nicknamed Yellow.
When we extended the playground, I let him out of the pipe cage inside, and he was free. But he lost his fights and ranked so low that he couldn’t get food inside; he couldn’t survive in there. Then, by some miracle, he found a hole and got right out. When I saw him running around outside, I made a huge fuss (“That’s our chicken!”) and tried to catch him, but he wouldn’t come back. I said goodbye and cried. The next day, there he was, back here as if nothing had happened, asking for food.
He’s a completely wild rooster, so he isn’t tame at all, but he came back to the same place, and I realized I should have trusted him a little more. Now he eats his fill and sleeps here. He has no plans to go back inside, though. He’s a scaredy-cat.
They always come home
The fence keeps the chickens in, but its main job is to protect them from predators. It turns out a hole big enough for a chicken had opened in a spot I hadn’t been checking, and lately about three chickens have been coming and going freely. But nobody goes anywhere. They all come home, and when they see everyone inside eating, they come to a human and ask to be let back in.
This is Princess’s friend, who doesn’t have a name yet. This one recently caught a cold and slipped down the pecking order inside, so came out to a human to report, “I’ve caught a cold.”
Even if they don’t seem to get along, chickens seem to know their own place and their own group. Outside there’s nothing but safe ground for about five kilometers around, so you could argue they might as well live out there. But one way or another, they all come home. Interesting, isn’t it?
Everyday faces
Then, a slideshow of my own photos of the casual faces they make every day: Taro, Flare, Opal, Black Tiger, Jack, Heart, Cloud and Chako; Niji, Banana and Marron; Sonata; Glico and Chico; Star; Gin-chan; Brownie; Kiwi; Mint with Mitarashi, Shiratama and Isobe; Happy; Chamomile; Parsley; Hare-chan; Cho and Othello Black; Piccolo; the Little Nuts; Shi-chan; Pen-chan; Kombu; the Shiratama team; Maple; the egg-laying team; Donut; Ponyo; Pepper and Lincoln; Peanut Butter; Peach; Othello White; Bee; and Echiseana.
Thanks for watching! See you in the next video.