The Mad, the Bad and the Chicken to Go...

It appears we may have been too hasty in the pointing of the accusatory finger. In fact, if I had gained better insight into the situation, I would have been wise to don protective handwear before pointing the finger in the first place. It seems, dear blog followers, that the ROGUE chicken in the coop, the shi...er, I mean muck stirrer extraordinaire, the true EVIL MINX might not be Mrs Slocombe after all. Oh no, the swing-o-meter of doom is erring very definitely in the direction of....

...MRS POO!

You see, following Mrs Miggins and her scraped bottom and only having one cage to house injured chickens, we had to release Mrs S from her psychotherapy regime in order to free up bed space for Miggo. Back to the coop Mrs S went and was immediately laid into by Mrs Poo.
'That's okay,' we thought as we supervised the fracas. 'They're just sorting out the pecking order that has been re-established since Mrs S was taken from the equation. This, after all, was part of the plan.' But then it became obvious that Mrs Poo was being more than authoritative or dominant. She was being down-right vicious.

As it was early evening, we needed to make a quick decision. We didn't want to risk Mrs S spending the rest of the evening with Mrs Poo who, it seemed, was intent on drawing blood. So we called our friend Jean and asked to borrow her dog cage as a temporary holding bay for either Poo or Slocombe. Only by this point I was happy for Mrs Poo's holding bay to be a casserole dish. She always has been a bit quick with the beak. You have to be firm when handling her and feeding her from your hand can be regarded as a bit of an extreme sport best avoided if you want to keep the skin on your fingers.

Anyway, we collected the dog cage from Jean. Jean lives by the river and Andy and I are both insanely jealous of her fantastic garden and quirky layout house. We stopped for a quick cuppa and told Jean our theory re: Mrs Poo.
'Would you eat her?' said Jean.
'She's a pet,' said Andy.
'Yes I would,' said I. 'But its only a recent thought.'

Furnished with the cage, we went home. We decided that Mrs Poo should be incarcerated for the night given her sudden cannabilistic tendencies and we wanted to see how Slocombe and Pumphrey got on together before bed-time.
My writing room was rapidly becoming a chicken hotel.

And although Mrs Slocombe tried to annoy Pumphrey by making an occasional jump at her, Mrs Pumphrey's elevated status within the pecking order meant she told her off sufficiently to stop the malarkey but without the vicious streak shown by Mrs Poo.

The following morning, Andy made a more substantial partition fence than the quick mock up we had to hurriedly contruct the day before. Pumphrey and Slocombe had survived the night together and were pottering amicably together. Mrs Poo was placed on the other side of the partition and showed no interest in getting through to Slocombe and Pumphrey although they (idiots!) were keen to get to her. In the afternoon, we opened the partition and it became evident that whilst Slocombe is clearly mad as a box of frogs and will, I feel, always be so, it is Mrs Poo who is the true baddie.

So what do we do? Do we carry on with all four of them, mopping up the occasional injury because these things happen in chicken world and need to be accepted and dealt with accordingly? Do we make Cluckinghen Palace semi-detached with equal facilities at both ends and let the hens live in pairs, because pairs seem to work okay? (And then, whom to pair with who?) Or do we say 'goodbye' to one in a 'one-of-you-must-go-for-the-good-of-the-others' kind of way? And if we go for this option, which one do we re-home? The mad, highly strung feather-plucker or the finger ripper dominator?

('Does that mean we are safe, Mrs Miggins?' says Mrs Pumphrey. 'I think so,' says Miggins. 'Phew!')

This is where chicken keeping has to be practical, not sentimental. This is where we have to be poultry keepers instead of pet owners. Oh dear. The decision wouldn't be so bad if there were 3 who obviously go on together but the only 2 who can really be trusted together are Miggins and Pumphrey. And in hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, when Mrs Bennett died we should have got a single replacement (which, ironically, would have been our Light Sussex, Mrs Pumphrey)and everything would probably have been fine. But lessons have been learned. And we shall know better next time.

Of course, we could convert Cluckinghen Palace into a block of flats, each hen with their own facilities, the only annoyance they could cause each other being banging on each other's ceilings with their walking sticks and holding late night parties. (See, I'm going mad in my desperation for a solution!). Meanwhile, Mrs Miggins is allowed into the fenced off area for daily exercise whilst her scraped bottom heals because Mrs Poo can't get at her. So that's good. And the whole flock have been put on my healing list with special mention for batty Mrs Slocombe. I know I should give special mention to Mrs Poo, too, if the Universal energies are to be used fairly, but I still can't quite forgive her for attacking Miggo.

So the the only list Mrs Poo is currently on is 'My Favourite Chicken Recipes.'