#roosting

The Smitten Sisters, the youngest three of the Ladies, were born in July. Miss Corduroy Smitten is determined to be the next queen bee and has decided she’s sleeping next to Miss Valise each night. Miss Valise is the eldest Lady and she’s huge and definitely in charge of the flock. Miss Valise has always refused to sleep in the coop with everyone else so I had to build her a special, tiny, heated bedroom in the run. It’s just part of her whole trip and Miss Corduroy has joined her now, presumably in an effort to be next in succession.

The other two Smittens, Miss Demeanor and Miss Clarinet, have been sleeping in the run as well but it’s like a huge screened porch and it’s gotten too cold for them to sleep there on a random perch. (Misses Valise and Corduroy would never share their swanky spot with the two commoners and they wouldn’t all fit anyhow; I built it just for Valise.) I need the two common Smittens to start sleeping in the coop now, which has two rooms. Two Ladies (Miss Rustine and Miss Spoons) sleep in the orange room in very much reserved spots. Miss Swimsuit has the entire blue room of the coop to herself. Whenever anyone else tried to sleep in there (each room could easily hold a dozen chickens) she’d literally knock them to the floor over and over until they gave up.

Since I wanted the two Smittens to start sleeping in the nicely heated blue room, so I put up a partition on the perch that Miss Swimsuit sleeps on, leaving her maybe four feet of space on which to roost each night. That way the Smittens could sleep there and she couldn’t easily get at them to knock them down. So each night for the last week I have picked up the two Smittens, Demeanor and Clarinet, and carried them into the blue room of the coop, plopped them on their perch. I have to do this one bird at a time, and while I’m transporting one, the other flutters down crazily and runs back into the run, and it’s like a silent comedy film. When I’m carrying them, they flap their wings unkindly in my face unless I pin them to my chest, which just stresses them out more.

It gets dark early now, so I wait until it’s quite dim (chickens can’t see well at all in low light) and that way they’re too afraid to hop down to the floor while I fetch the other bird. I’ve added treats to the perch too, which distracts them long enough for me to make my escape and close the door on the coop. I’m hoping that they eventually give in and head there each night on their own; in the meantime I’ve removed all the perching spots in the run that they could use. It’s not so much about outsmarting them as it is about boring them into complacency. They thrive on routine and hate any sort of change. I got a new, small area rug in the studio and they wouldn’t come in for two days. Meantime our struggle is captured each night on the coop cam, so I can watch it before deleting it, and laugh at my good intentions and facial expressions.

A dormant Carolina Wren in the corner on Sleepy Bird Sunday

Fun fact: Carolina Wrens tend to sleep in corners to keep warm and away from the wind, but also evade predators by their dotted plumage and fluffing up to give the illusion of a larger bird. (x)

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THEY SLEEP IN TREES

Turkeys prefer to sleep perched atop tree branches, where they are safe from predators, which include coyotes, foxes and raccoons. They often sleep in flocks, and upon waking, call out a series of soft yelps before descending to make sure that the rest of their roosting group is okay after a night of not seeing or hearing one another.

Red rooster roosting