A Monday Morning Surprise

Yesterday when I fed my hens we has some surprise visitors. We have pigeons and mynah birds every day plus the usual hordes of sparrows but I had never seen birds like these before. My husband tells me they are Kalij Pheasants (Lophura leucomelanos)pronounced Ka-leege, which were imported from Nepal in 1962.

They are quite large, bantam size, and there were two males and a female. One of my Australorp hens likes to fly out of the pen and forage in my next door neighbors yard. My neighbor doesn't mind so I have not clipped the hen's wings. Much to my surprise one of the male visitors chased her up the fence line and back down again until she found a place she could get through into the safety of the hen yard. I had never seen that kind of aggressive behavior in a game bird, my hen was at least twice as large as he was, but being a chicken she acted like a chicken and ran for her life. No eggs from her for a few days!

If you are thinking about keeping a few backyard hens you could do a lot worse than the Australian Black Orpington. They are prolific layers of what the pros call a 'tinted' egg which is medium brown, and delicious.

Y'all come back!