Today was “deep chicken coop mucking day.” All the (poop encrusted) wood shavings needed to be scooped up from the “poop rail” and replaced. All the (poop encrusted) shavings on the floor needed to be shoveled into bags, removed to the compost pile, and replaced.
While I was in the coop area I did some other cleaning up: my volunteer cherry tomato vine (which started on the OUTSIDE of the coop area) had migrated through the hardware cloth and was now dying, its tendrils filling a 6 x 6 foot area of the chicken run.
I ripped off the dead vines which still had a few tomatoes and threw them out into the yard for the birds to peck at. One tomato fell to the ground and I picked it up and threw it out, too, and it fell into a cluster of weeds.
Hroostie, my big, beautiful Blue Splash Maran rooster saw it fall, and pranced over to get it.
He did not eat it, or run around with it in his mouth as the hens would have done.
No…..he marched through the bushes, carefully picked it up, and carried it over to where his “favorite girls” where clustered, and set it down in the midst of them-and they immediately gobbled it up.
Now, I don’t usually think of chickens as being altruistic (tho there was that time with the one who did a death watch), but clearly this alpha (well, only) male acted out of concern…altruism….love..for his ladies.
And that is the sweetest thing.
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