The Chicken Tamer

I found Felix with one of the Speckeldy hens - he calls this one The Queen, it is his favourite. The hen was lying in the dirt eyes closed in blissed out slumber with Fe cooing and trickling/rubbing grains of dirt over it's back. It almost looked like it was panting and I am afraid to say I got kind of worried. This is the boy who touches every sort of feathery or fury thing he possibly can, who if unseen can be found in the garden with his head in the nesting box or crouched somewhere watching a chicken. I frequently have to ask him to step back for a minute because if he has his hand under the bird's butt while she lays she just might not.... He feeds them from his hand, he chats with them, they follow him around, today I saw him say to The Queen should they have a race and no joke the hen and he matched strides, side by side - not the hen trying to run away or being scared by his running, just side by side. It is so funny.



Anyway, today he was crouched over doing his getting the hen to sleep bit - and it works by the way, they really do fall asleep under his magic little hands - and for a minute I thought it was dead, that in his enthusiasm he had squeezed it a little too hard one too many times. He saw my anxious face and told me; Look! Look - she is breathing in and out! Don't worry! She is just asleep.



He then does a high pitched clucky noise and the hen leaps up in time for him to give it a few crumbs of oat cracker - from his hand of course. He stands and tells me (lectures more like) on the ways in which one can soothe and calm a hen, and then later have fun with it, like carry it around a bit, show it some things higher up, then maybe play some games and give it crumbs to follow you. Just about anywhere.





It's worked on me. I am eating out of his hand - and I'd follow him anywhere :)