For dVerse’s Haibun Monday: Eagle. Our local apex raptors are wedge-tailed eagles, they stand up to 1.2m tall, have a wingspan more than 2m, and have been known to take lambs and small ‘roos.
My neighbour has the worst luck. Everyone out here keeps chickens, and everyone loses the odd one. But her chooks seem to have a life expectancy of under a week. She’s lost them to foxes (well, haven’t we all?) and to a neighbour’s dog, and the goshawks, and coxy… One time she got some fertile eggs, and hatched them in an incubator. From ten eggs, she got eight roosters. One of the two hens was killed by a fox, so she put the rest of the birds in my coop until she reinforced hers. My Muscovy drake killed the last hen, so I gave her back her roosters.
But she never gives up. She never does. We went to the Goulburn poultry auction, and she bought several pairs. The next day she sent me a text – a chicken head on the ground. Turns out the wedge-tailed eagles that I’d been admiring as they circled over the valley were nesting right over her chicken coop, and had taken all the hens (and only the hens) to feed their chicks. So now she has a henhouse full of roosters. Again.
Why go out for lunch
with a buffet just downstairs?
Hunting’s for the birds.
anotherKate 
Your neighbour seems very unlucky to me
I have always thought that many roosters in a henhouse would fight one another 😏
They fight when young, but seem to stop once one clearly establishes dominance. Unless there is a hen, then there’ll be the odd scuffle in any other than the dominant male takes liberties.
Thanks for these interesting details : I did not know them!!!
A henhouse full of roosters….a pretty useless gathering! Your friend needs a roof on her henhouse!!
She finally put one on, chicken wire like mine, and the eagles ripped it open. 😦
Enjoyed the mirth here Kate, well written!
Thanks Rob 😀
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