Meet “Fuzzyfoot,” a unique hen amongst our motley crew of 45 friendly, gregarious and sometimes neurotic hens. Sometimes I’ve called her “Alaska” because she’s got enough fluffy feathers for whole ‘nother hen. This fluffy hen is a dual-purpose breed called Light Brahma. She has a very docile temperment and lays light brown eggs. She is quite hefty for a bird her size. She has beautiful white plumage accented with layers of black feathers around her neck and tail. There is very fine white feathering around the fringe of the black feathers. You’ll see it more in detail in the photo at the bottom of this blog.

She takes care to nourish her body and the forming egg within her and eats little bits of crushed oyster shells to ensure she lays strong egg shells. I have observed that she will not fight with other hens for food. She will wait for the action to settle down and leisurely take her time to eat.

I have strong memories of Light Brahma as a young pullet. She loves dust bathing. I watched her roll her eyes in bliss when she had a chance to dust in dirt at 4 weeks old. Around mid-March 2006 we moved all the young ‘uns from the brooder house on our neighbor’s land to the new chicken coop on our land. How clean her feather toes are at 4 weeks old!

She’s special because of the feathers on her shanks and toes. She has learned recently to walk gingerly [almost reluctantly] onto my outstretched palm if she wants to nibble at some cracked corn and not compete with another hen. Her pecks are very gentle and not at all greedy like other hens.

She’ll remind me to feed her some more cracked corn with a very firm flick of her beak if the corn happens runs out on the palm of my hand. I think she learned how to walk onto my palm by watching Ophelia, a Barred Rock hen, boldly jump from the ground onto my arms for cracked corn.

A close-up of her head reveals she has pea comb, an asset in freezing, cold weather. I was lucky to capture a macro shot of her feather shanks. I realize it’s a scary shot of the dirt around her toes and the “scaly Skeksis of it.” Fortunately, in Ahualoa’s mild climate, Fuzzyfoot would never worry about freezing temperatures. She worries about where to find her next nibble of cracked corn.

It didn’t quite fit under the tree, but Jim built Deb and i a fancy new cage. For those who don’t know chickens, a hen can sometimes go “broody” which means it stops laying, fluffs up its feathers, refuses to leave the nest, growls at you if you remove it, then runs immediately back to the nest, day or night. This is normal chicken behavior when it’s time to set on some eggs to hatch them, but it’s not useful when you’re trying to produce eggs!

A “broody cage” is for isolating a hen from the rest of the flock (and the nests) until it stops brooding, which can take a few days.

This new cage is lifted off the ground – cool air under a broody hen helps it to realize it’s not time to brood – and it’s got comfy handles for opening/closing and carrying around. Deluxe!’