Angry Birds

CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK!!!

This post has no photo to accompany it. Sorry. I tried to take a good picture to show my meaning with our angry birds, but thanks to the chain mail protecting the door of The Fortress, it made it impossible to photograph the congregation of cluckies gathered there every morning.

Any morning the chickens don't get let out of the coop before 8 A.M. (which is about everyday) we always joke that the chickens are mad. And I really believe that they are. The chickens all gather around the door, pushing and shoving each other aside, trying to see out and when a human might be coming along to free them for the day. After all, they have a stressful schedule to keep. Bugs to dig up, corn to eat from the steer stuffer, walls to fly over or fences to go under, eggs to hide around the barn for us to look for later. I will worry when the day comes and I go outside in the morning and no one is standing there mad at me because they've done been up for at least an hour and are ready to start the day.

The chickens HATE New Years. They know it is the one night a year Dan and I stay up past midnight and it will probably be 9 or 10 in the morning before they get let out.

I tried to find anything that told me how long a chicken sleeps. For example, we know cats sleep like 20 hours out of the day. I know horses will nap up to about 4 hours a day. But how long does a chickens sleep?

I doubt the hens get much shut eye. A rooster will crow any darn time he feels like it. Since I've been getting up two or three times a night to use the bathroom, just this morning I heard Cad-Buddy or Chicken Hawk crowing around 3 A.M. (I'm surprised our neighbors haven't T.P.ed our house yet.)

I figured chickens woke up when the sun came up. I don't think this is necessarily true. I've heard different things as to why a rooster will crow. Some say it's to tell predators they survived the night. (So why would mine crow with three hours of darkness left?) Others say a rooster will crow whenever he feels like it and for any reason he feels like it.

So why the misconception of roosters crowing when the sun comes up? Chickens ARE birds and birds are most vocal in the A.M.

I don't know. I'm no chicken expert, I just know mine. I know I sleep with a fan on so I'm not woken up at ungodly hours. I know I cringe when I do hear them, praying the neighbors don't decide to get violent over it. And I know that every morning I walk out to the barn is not early enough to let the angry birds out for the day.


                                                                                              ...cluck... cluck... cluck...