Phi Alpha Cluck

CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK!!!

  As I have mentioned before, this year has been smooth sailing as far as our chickens accepting the fact that we have gotten new chicks. In years past, there were either threats of egg laying strikes, or the strikes actually happened. This has to be the first year in Shawhan farm recorded history that the presence of a new flock is not affecting the old one!

  I was really beginning to wonder what got into the chickens when one day I spotted a delinquent hen out of the coop and who was out mingling with several newbies, who had somehow escaped their own confinement. Thankfully I was able to stop myself before the urge to run up to the older hen and scold her for showing the young ones bad habits, because I was able to overhear what she was telling them.

  Yes, she was explaining how a chicken can escape the many fences and gates that cage her in and where the best egg hiding places around the barn can be found. But she was also explaining to them rules of some kind.

 Rules? I asked myself. I was slightly confused because most of what I overheard was how to break the rules.

  As it turned out, these "rules" involved organized activity...thankfully not the gang/mob kind...but more like the rules a woman would follow in a society of women. Or in our case, hens. Yes, people, a sorority exists on our farm! After a lot of spying and peeping through the barn cracks and sneaking out late at night, I discovered the sorority is called Phi Alpha Cluck, and that the Shawhan farm chapter is one of twenty in the surrounding Highland County area.

 

  So we have a designated "house hen" who takes it upon herself to escape Cooptown everyday and prep the rushes who will be accepted into the order of laying hens next month when we intergrade the new chickens into the existing flock. 

 

 

  I'm tempted to speed up the process because the rush weeks have been pure H.E. Double Hockey Stick around here, especially at night. In my opinion, the severity of the hazing with Phi Alpha Cluck is a bit too dangerous, as it includes the rushes being out exposed at nighttime. The rushes have been forced to run multiple times across the road, eat potato peelings despite the numerous health risks, and the chanting is enough to drive a person nuts! I have lost hours upon hours of sleep (Dan and Carl have never seemed to notice, but I'm a light sleeper). Even the Amish down the road have been complaining.

 

  I'm not sure how much more of this I can take!