Lady Leone

When Lady Leone first joined my flock she was a square breasted Giant White Jersey who waddled from the weight of her high-corn, meat breeder diet. Reaching the lower roosting bar required a lot of squawking and flapping and a significant amount of fairy dust.

No doubt about it – Lady Leone was a large unit. An American obese. Prime eating. A 20lber, said the lady I bought her from.

Lucky for Lady Leone, I’m a vegetarian. I didn’t even eat her when she broke the roosting bar.

Despite Lady’s superior mass, Spacey and Lacy bullied the new arrival. Fortunately Giant Jersey’s are know for their amicable nature, otherwise she may have sat on them like they were eggs to be hatched.

Exercise and a balanced diet – the super cure of the 20th century!

Lady Leone is a new bird. She’s made it to the top roosting bar and I hear less thuds as she gracelessly descends to the coop floor. She’ll always be a large lady, big bones are in her genes, but I think I’ve saved her from an early diabetes type-2 death.

Devon and Delilah

Devon and Delilah were four months old when they first arrived. I kept them in an improvised pallet coop in the greenhouse. When they were old enough to fly out of the open topped enclosure and eat all of my basil sprouts, I decided they were old enough to integrate with the ‘big birds’.

They were fast and nimble and so didn’t loose too many feathers.

Lacy ignored them – a confident flock leader. Spacey gave them a bit of hassle; I think even then she guessed these young Barred Plymouth Rocks would out grow her one day. But it was Lady Leone, with all her fat-hen insecurities, who saw her chance to rise from the bottom of the flock.

Devon and Delilah don’t seem to mind. They spend most of the time bickering with each other. Standing tall and shaking out their neck feathers in some battle dance that they learnt from watching Jurassic Park.

I’m pretty sure they love each other though. They’re always together and practically sleep on top of each other in the coop.

I think of them as twins and tell them apart by Delilah’s partially feathered, hobbit-like feet.