Separation Anxiety

Nobody told me that chickens have the same anxieties as human children. You know how the child-rearing books tell you that sometimes, when you're potty-training a child, (s)he can get separation anxiety when stuff is flushed?(My kids never seemed to experience this anxiety- they loved to flush all kinds of stuff: socks, toys- you name it. One of 'em even tried to vacuum all the water out of the toilet once, but I digress).

Well,I was kind of late getting outside to let Sam and the girls out for their evening constitutional tonight. I took care of cleaning up their water dish and feeder and opened the whole coop instead of just the nest boxes, to check for eggs. Whoaaaa! Had they ever made a mess! So I went and got the bucket and little shovel and some fresh litter to clean things up. Usually, when I do this, Sam and the girls are wandering around the yard and don't even know what I'm doing. Tonight, Sam decided to hang around and watch me. He was fine when I got the eggs, but he got really, really upset as he saw me shoveling the other stuff out. He started making these really freaky noises, and got his hackles all puffed out, like I was trying to steal something really valuable out of his house. He was not even pleased when he saw me putting nice fresh shavings back in there.

Talking to him about how much cleaner and fresh smelling it was now did no good at all.He was still just strutting and carrying on- I finally had to shake a broom at him to get him to go away. Just wait until I tell Mr. G. that he needs to build some kind of droppings pit I can empty out without Sam being able to see me doing it. Mr. G. says between the lumber, the labor, the feed, the pasta treats and couscous and what-all we've already put into this whole chicken project,he figures the eggs we're getting are worth about 10 bucks a dozen...