You know those times when a series of coincidences seem to make everything fall into place perfectly, as if it had actually been planned?
Synchronicity some call it. Well one evening the week before last I took an injured cat to the vets. It wasn't mine but this cat needed urgent attention so I took it to be treated, and I left the cat carrier on the back seat of my car.
Now there's a place near here that sells poultry supplies and eggs, and sometimes hosts big rehome days for ex-battery hens. The rehomes are all planned in advance with the number of hens being matched with the number of
homes on offer, to make sure none are ever left behind.
This is the same place where I buy the feeds for my hens and the mixed corn for the various wild water birds I look after so I'm there fairly often as you can probably imagine.
One recent Saturday I went in to stock up on feeds and while I was there, thought I would ask how easy it is to settle new hens in with an existing flock as I was considering maybe adding another couple later in the year.
Are you starting to get the idea here?
I just happened to go to buy feed that day, and there just happened to be two hens left over from the most recent rehome, and I just happened to have a perfect sized carrier in my car. These two girls just happened to come home with me and move into my older coop that just happened to still be set up in the garden but had been unused since my original four had moved into their new spacious HENthouse.
When I got these two hens home I had to carefully transport them from the carrier into their new (temporary) coop.
The poor birds were terrified, well beyond terrified, and the first one I picked up actually bit my arm as she was so scared. It didn't hurt at all, hens beaks aren't designed to be used as weapons in that way, but it showed how scared she was.
The second hen, when I picked her up, she screamed like I have never heard any bird scream before and desperately tried to break free but I managed to get her safely into the coop with her sister.
The hen that bit me is now named Watchitt, and the hen that screamed at me is now named Tellme - seemingly perfect names for this pair, but actually chosen weeks before that sequence of coincidences even started to happen...
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