Our sweet neighbor said it correctly, "You know, when you name a chicken "Bratt," you will probably have some trouble with her!"
Let's back up and put that statement into context. At the moment it was made, I was desperately trying to herd this not-so-little Speckled Sussex pullet off our neighbor's property! For the third time that day (and, what wouldn't be her last), Bratt had flown over our fence.
Her first foray into the "wild front yard" came at about 9:00AM, when I was out filling feeders, cleaning waterers, and doing general chicken related chores. I heard a "Where is everybody?" chicken call that seemed like it was coming from our front driveway, so I went out to investigate. I didn't see anything, and began to convince myself that the call must have come from a neighboring chicken - when all-of-a-sudden, down the center of the street, as if she owned the whole neighborhood, strutted our Bratt!
I gently herded her back to her own yard, and, although she seemed glad to be with her "sisters" again, I could tell she was still a little agitated. Her agitation surfaced only a few minutes later, when I saw that gigantic tail of hers flitting amongst the tall grass through my kitchen window. Out again! This time I watched her, and noticed she was definitely looking for nesting places. Ahh! A first egg! Sometimes that impending first egg can cause all manner of chaos in a tiny bird brain!
It was my mistake that I didn't put her directly into her coop and shut the gate after that incident - but I'm a bit of a softie, so twice more I went out to "rescue" my stray girl. Finally, after collecting her from our neighbor's yard, and from setting up shop in the carport, I had finally had enough. Into the coop she went! Quite ironically, she quickly found a nesting box that met with her approval and got down to business - laying the most precious tear-drop shaped cream colored egg!
Bratt has yet to try her expeditious stunts again, as her eggs continue to grow in size and now find their way into our egg customer's cartons. I do warn her potential egg consumers that if they suddenly feel like "flying the coop," it might just be a little inspiration from the egg they had for breakfast!
