The Back Yard Flock

Artist, Shelley Mathiot, paints one of her chickens

Meet the Girls....

The Back Yard Flock numbered eight, like so many other suburban flocks, because the city limit was 10. Tucked into a pretty little coop and and a spacious run cobbled together with chicken wire and spare lumber, was Penny, the leader of the group, Fifi, Rosie, Opal, Maudie, Gertie, Daisy, and Fancy. 

There was no rooster, as they were suburban chickens and roosters were forbidden because of their excessive crowing. Since they had never had a rooster, no one complained about the lack of one. The girls tried to sit their eggs despite this fact. Actually, they tried sitting on anything that looked even vaguely like an egg, and so aspired to hatch tennis balls, soup ladles and light bulbs. 

And, though a rooster is the protector of his harem, they rarely felt the danger that country or farm chickens would have to worry over. They had some shady trees with low branches near the coop to hide in, should they need to, and the coop itself, of course. There didn’t seem to be an over abundance of hawks to worry about, or foxes for that matter. Mostly they fought with squirrels who liked to eat their feed, and little brown rabbits who liked their alfalfa, and the occasional opossum. Then there were bugs, never in short supply in The South, which they loved to eat!