Tales from Wannabea Farm

Several months ago I started asking around for a kitten. I needed a barn cat and as I had free range chickens I really needed to get a kitten so he would learn real quick to leave them alone. Running into Tammy Sklar at the Horse's Mouth, she said she had kittens ready to go. Picking out a tortoise shell kitten and one that was solid black I stuffed them into a box and headed home. About a quarter of a mile away from Tammy's the box came unstuffed. Now I know there were only two kittens in that box when I left Tammy's but all of a sudden it seemed like at least half a dozen as they were all over me. I grabbed one and put him back in the box, then grabbed the other one and tried to put her back into the box. The only trouble was that as I tried to put one back in the other would get out. Now this is all going on while I am driving on FM 831, not the safest thing to be doing so I pulled off the road and finally maneuvered both cats back in the box at the same time, flipped the box over and topped it with my purse. Now, with tiny little claw marks covering my arms and hands, I continued on my way.

Arriving home I bustled about trying to get them settled in the barn, filling their food and water bowls while they were trying to crawl up my legs. As I pulled them off for the third time and sat them on the floor they froze, all eyes on the door. Turning to see what they were looking at I saw one of my hens staring back at them. The kittens immediately went into stalking mode. The hen strutted past them to check out the dog's food bowl while the kittens still stared, frozen in place until the hen had her back to them, then they pounced! Now these were pretty small kittens and that was a big hen and she must have sensed them coming at her because all of sudden she spun around, raised her wings and made a clucking noise. Those little cats were running into each other trying to get away from her and back up my legs they came, stopping only when they were on my shoulder. Pulling them off of me again, I now had little claw marks on my legs and up my back.

Unfortunately we lost one of the little kittens after it crawled under the hood of my truck. Only the little black one we called Pouf was left, but she has such a personality. Many times we look out and she is perching on the hood of the tractor, looking like an Egyptian hood ornament. Some of the hens sleep in the hen house, some roost in the barn on the stall divider which is made from a fence panel framed with a thin metal frame. At the end of the divider there is a 6” wooden gate post and this is where Pouf “roosts” with the hens, looking all the while like some exotic finial atop the gate post. Other nights she sleeps in the hen house in a nesting box, or perhaps she divides her nights between them. My little black hen is setting and many times I go out and Pouf is in the nest box next to her, just lying there watching her. One of the other hens has made a nest on top of the hay and as I went out to feed the other morning the little hen was on her nest doing her best to keep us in groceries and there lay Pouf right beside her.

Now I’m wondering if we will have chicks that “meow” or if Pouf will eventually start “clucking”?