It's raining hen

Luckily for you this is a picture of madrone berries at the Indian Lodge in Davis Mountains State Park rather than a photo of a molting hen.
But if you must know what a half-nekkid chicken looks like, be my guest--and scroll down.
Of all the times for Hombre to abscond with my camera, it would be when Wanda is molting like her life depends on it. I didn't realize when we got our first birds that a chicken molt is nothing like the iguana molts I dealt with for ten years. Iguanas get dandruffy, one section of their body at a time, but once the flakes have settled there's gorgeous new skin underneath, as if they'd done a self-induced chemical peel.
Hens, though, are deciduous. Wanda's walking around dropping drifts of feathers in her wake. This reveals large, random patches of skin that are alarmingly red and stubbled with small, white spiny pinfeathers. When she's fully feathered she's cute but right now she looks like a forensics-textbook photo.
Maybe it's the aesthetics of only having two sorry tail feathers hanging off her patchy butt or maybe molting is physically uncomfortable, but Wanda is even more crabby and grumpy than usual. Ordinarily I can pick her up with a minimum of protest, but now she wants no one touching her, preferring to sulk on a wooden table under the eaves.
The three red hens aren't molting yet. In fact, they look fabulous--brassy redheads with full plumage and chunky builds. They're cruising the yard like shiny '50s automobiles, or '50s screen goddesses, while Wanda looks like a meth-head in a burned-out Yugo. Maybe this is why Wanda roused herself from her sulk earlier, marched thirty feet over to a stand of oak trees and pecked a grazing Sparky hard on the head, just once, before dragging herself back to her grumpy corner.
I get that. The weather is finally--after months of drought and weeks of flood-producing rains--beautiful, and I've got two kids with colds and a hip injury that's landed me in physical therapy and the special hell of limited physical activity. None of it's the end of the world and it should all blow over soon, but right now, if I saw a woman running happily around my yard with two snot-free children in the cool sunshine, I'd be tempted to peck her on the head.
Hens, though, are deciduous. Wanda's walking around dropping drifts of feathers in her wake. This reveals large, random patches of skin that are alarmingly red and stubbled with small, white spiny pinfeathers. When she's fully feathered she's cute but right now she looks like a forensics-textbook photo.
Maybe it's the aesthetics of only having two sorry tail feathers hanging off her patchy butt or maybe molting is physically uncomfortable, but Wanda is even more crabby and grumpy than usual. Ordinarily I can pick her up with a minimum of protest, but now she wants no one touching her, preferring to sulk on a wooden table under the eaves.
The three red hens aren't molting yet. In fact, they look fabulous--brassy redheads with full plumage and chunky builds. They're cruising the yard like shiny '50s automobiles, or '50s screen goddesses, while Wanda looks like a meth-head in a burned-out Yugo. Maybe this is why Wanda roused herself from her sulk earlier, marched thirty feet over to a stand of oak trees and pecked a grazing Sparky hard on the head, just once, before dragging herself back to her grumpy corner.
I get that. The weather is finally--after months of drought and weeks of flood-producing rains--beautiful, and I've got two kids with colds and a hip injury that's landed me in physical therapy and the special hell of limited physical activity. None of it's the end of the world and it should all blow over soon, but right now, if I saw a woman running happily around my yard with two snot-free children in the cool sunshine, I'd be tempted to peck her on the head.
Labels: critters












