Thread by @UrsulaV

Today in Life With Chickens...
So there is a big bag of pine bedding on the porch. It’s what gets used in the nest boxes. Occasionally a chicken will realize it’s there and hunker down in it.

Yesterday I come outside and see Dotson hunkered in the shavings, and I almost think nothing of it, except I see a flash of red under him. Then a head pops up and I realize he’s sitting on Strong Independent Chicken.

They do not appear to be doing anything illicit. He’s just sitting there. SIC is indignant that I have witnessed her using a rooster as a down comforter, but this is all.

They both get up, and Dotson, never the most graceful, knocks the bag over. I right the bag.

Then I watch as, for five minutes, Dotson tried to climb back into the bag and as soon as he’s standing there, SIC is try to wedge herself under him. It is...quite a thing.

He is making these very polite little clucking noises and SIC is just GIVE ME YOUR BODY HEAT.

Kevin, tired of cleaning up pine shavings, fills a crate with them and puts it on the porch so they stop knocking the bag over.

This morning, once again, SIC is in the crate and Dotson is sitting on her. And by sitting, I mean “engulfing.” He is a big fluffy boy.

When humans show up, they hastily leave the crate, because mealworms.

I just discovered two eggs in the crate.

They’re both hers. We thought she’d stopped laying for the winter. As near as I can tell, Strong Independent Chicken wants to lay her eggs A) not in the coop, but B) while warm, and the solution she came up with is to have a rooster sit on her while she lays an egg.

I still don’t think he’s getting any.