There are a lot of animals sharing common ground on the farm – chickens, cats, dogs, donkeys, sheep – and sometimes boundaries cross. Today was a day of food management,  a minor but consuming task on a farm that requires constant maintenance and attention. The chickens came out of their roost early and made a beeline for the cat food bowls, occupied at the moment by Flo and Minnie. Maria and Red and I were on  food police duty.

Before the chickens arrived, Flo had chased Minnie away from both food bowls, hissing and puffing herself up. We broke that up – put the bowls farther apart – and then the chickens came charging onto the porch and made a beeline for the cat bowls, driving both Minnie and Flo away. I grabbed a broom and charged the chickens, driving them momentarily off of the porch and commanded Red to “walk up” to them, but they walked right past him, and he was, for once befuddled. Chickens might run, but will not be herded.

This afternoon, trouble broke out in the barn, where we fed the cats and the chickens appeared on the hay bales and Maria chased them to the door but they circled again, and I was holding the water hose and turned it on them, driving them back towards the Dahlia garden. Red wanted no part of this, we went into the pasture to fill the water buckets and I brought carrots to the donkeys and the sheep came barreling around the corner and this time Red was on the case and he and Zelda butted heads for a second, but he drove the sheep back into the pole barn. Donkeys, unlike barn cats, will bite or kick the sheep if they get obnoxious. Maria gave the chickens some feed to keep them out of the barn, but then, as we finished our chores, we saw that Lenore had chased the chickens off and was eating their feed while they squawked indignantly.

We are coming up with a new feeding plan.