Sunday, September 11, 2011

Ginger's in BIG Trouble!

My sweet little Ginger has become a bad girl.  I fully expect to come home one of these days and find her with a tattoo on her arm, her wattles pierced, drinking whisky strait from the bottle and smoking.  I don't know where I went wrong with her.

Ginger has always been the baby of the group.  Even though she's the same age as the others.  She always has to sleep right in the middle of the group.  She HATES being alone.  She'll squawk incessantly when both her sisters are laying eggs and she's left alone in her run.  And she's a mama's girl.  She's always the first one to run up to me and jump up in my lap and inspect me for treats.

And unfortunately, she is also at the bottom of the pecking order of the three.  I don't have a big problem with pecking but it's taken some experimenting to figure out how and when to doll out treats so that they don't peck at her and drive her away.

And on more than one occasion when she's been bullied away from treats, I've let her follow me into the garage and help herself to a few meal worms strait from the farm.  Yes, I know what you are all thinking, I've taught her this naughty behavior.  And sadly, I must agree.

So this morning, I let the three out for just a few minutes of free range time while I cut fresh flowers for the house.  So I was back and forth in the garden.  And then decided to give their run a dusting of DE.  I've yet to find a mite on any of the three but it's something I fear and dread so I give their house and run a good dusting once a month or so.

I went back into the garage to put the DE away and just as I was exiting, I heard a sound.  I stopped and thought that was odd.  And when I turned around, I saw it.  Ginger's fluffy blond butt sticking up out of the meal worm farm.  OMG.  I ran over and scooped her up out of the farm.  Mind you, this is the next batch of worms I'm starting so I don't pull any worms out of this tub to feed them.  (And yes, I need to get a lid for this second farm.  It's on my To-Do list.  And just moved up several spaces.)

Anyway,  she's stuffed to the gills.  She had to have been up there for at least five minutes and probably closer to ten.  She was fat and happy and quite proud of herself.  I sat down on the back stoop with her and we had a long chat about her naughty behavior and what a bad girl she was.  And what does she do, she croons out her long neck and wraps it around mind and lets out a few soft peep peep peeps.

And yes, I melted.  How can one be angry at that?

But the next batch of meal worms is definitely going to be smaller than I had planned due to today's naughty activities.  Sigh...

2 comments:

  1. LOL! Too funny. I can just see her with a satisfied, smug look. Just don't show her where the key is hidden or you may come home to a trashed house from a wild chicky party that took place while you were gone. ;)

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  2. @ Joan - NO KIDDING!!! That hen has no boundaries. We had a guest over tonight who wanted to see the hens and feed them and she was STILL too full. Tried to give her one of her favorite treats (besides meal worms) sprouted wheat and she just walked away.

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