Poor Lucy

How many chicken phrases can you think of?

Flew the coop
Hen pecked
Pecking order
Coming home to roost
Don't put your eggs in one basket
Cock of the Walk
... and there are more, I am sure.

This is Lucy. She is an Ameraucana chicken with mainly red feathers. She's named after Lucille Ball. Our Lucy has a beak that is ever so slightly misaligned so she has a silly yet inquisitive look on her face. It is because of that defect that we don't want to hatch any of her eggs - we don't want any abnormalities to go forward into the next generations of chickens.

Oh, how I Love Lucy! Poor Lucy however is the lowest chicken in the pecking order. I can't figure out why. Who knows how chickens think.

Anyway, Lucy is hen pecked. And she is rooster-pecked. In fact, I think she is the rooster's favorite girl, if you know what I mean. His favorite target. See her back? She is beginning to be missing feathers on her back as James the rooster jumps on top of her often (oh the chicken sex that happens in our little pen. Ugh.). Thankfully we don't have too many chickens so she has plenty of access to food and water when we keep the girls in the chicken yard. But Lucy doesn't like to lay her eggs in the coop. I think she became a target in the roosting boxes - a sitting duck, so to speak (sorry - it's a little foul humor).

Lucy has thought of a solution to that problem. Smart girl flies out of the coop to lay her eggs. It took us the longest time to figure out what she was doing and more importantly for us chicken farmers where she was going. But the mystery was eventually solved. We are smarter than a chicken, thank you very much!

Lucy can fly, but not too far. She sort of jumps and flaps her wings. She jumps onto the chicken tractor, and from there to the roof of the coop.

Then from the roof, she jumps over the deer fencing into the side of the hill next to the coop.

It's loaded with ivy and all sorts of low lying brush. And it is there that she lays her eggs. When she's done, she hops off the nest and walks around the edge of the coop trying to get back in. Chickens are flock creatures and sort of freak out when they are alone. It's not a good thing.

After we figured out where she was laying, we took the eggs out of her nest and put in a couple fake eggs so she thinks her secret nest has not been discovered.

We collect her beautiful greenish blue egg daily, so every day she when she returns she thinks there are still two of 'her eggs' in that nest of hers. Not the brightest bulb, that Lucy. We love her anyway.