Bollyweird Aliens

Deirdre McCluckskey claims she was abducted by aliens last Friday, and her comments caused quite a stir in a coop already shaken by allegations of ghosts and zombies.

"They came in the night and snatched me while I was sleeping," she said. "There were bright lights and strange sounds... and... and... they put me in this little cage and put me on this table... There were aliens with big eyes and even bigger hair and they all gathered around me and... did... strange things..."

A clique of believers gathered around the hen, eager for more details, while some of the other hens were quite skeptical. Dierdre is more known for her right-leaning economic theories than for wild tales of supernatural occurrences (although the two are sometimes synonymous, such as in the case of "trickle-down" economics), but she didn't let the naysayers ruffle her feathers. Although she seemingly lacks the empirical evidence she would need to prove her point (not that this bothers most economists, most notably Alan Greenspan), Deirdre was undeterred in her tale-telling. "There was one alien who said he was going to come again in the night and turn our coop into a frothel and casino! I don't know what that means, but we'd better watch out. Next time they rest of you may not be so lucky. They could beam us all up into the light and... and... probe our egg holes while they do their weird alien dances!"

Lee Smith chuckled to himself in the corner.

MechWarrior looked alarmed.

Haunted Coop

An unexplained event occured last week which led many of the chickens to suspect that perhaps the their coop is haunted.

"It was a dark and stormy night," Mother Clucker began. "We were all lined up on our bench, cozy and warm, when we were awoken by strange sounds coming from the far side of the coop. It was almost like a cluck or a coo, but with a bit of a moan mingled in."

"Like the sound a chicken makes. But not," Bartleby Pollywollydoodah added.

"We listened to these sounds all night, off and on, and were quite unsettled by morning," Mother Clucker continued. "The biggest shock of all came when the door was opened and there, on our bench, were two pale creatures who looked like chickens, but much smaller, and sounded like chickens, but with a most unearthly tinge."

"They bolted when sunlight hit them and raced to the far corner of the run," Lee Smith said. "I'm sure that's empirical evidence that we're dealing with supernatural beings."

"We mobilized ourselves into action!" Mother Clucker proudly boasted. "We're not about to let any little chicken ghosts get up in here and contaminate our food with their ghostly essence. We rallied around the feeder and wouldn't let them near our precious grains."

The leghorns, who most resembled the intruders in color and size, were eager to dominate the smaller creatures whether they were ghosts or not. They managed to get in a few good pecks before one of the humans showed up and whisked the chicken-like beings away.

The leghorns disagree that the beings, who called themselves Gladys and FeatherPants, were ghosts.

"You can't peck a ghost," Rampage! said. "I think what we've got here are zombies. Zombies are well known to frequent these parts. Why, just last year there was a zombie infestation and Kid Chaos had to get 'em all in the brain pan. Probably one of those zombies took a bite out of one of these neighborhood chickens and turned it into a zombie chicken! Zombie Chicken! Zombie Chicken!" Rampage! was quite worked up over her theory, almost enough to go on an actual rampage. Most of the chickens still hold to the ghost theory.

"How did they get into the coop while we were sleeping, smarty-pants?" Mother Clucker said tauntingly. "Zombies can't pass through walls."

"Zombie Chicken! Zombie Chicken!" Rampage said, running around in circles.

The Best Cubby

The Knife spent a good twenty minutes sitting on Neil Young's head today, while the erstwhile musician attempted to squeeze out her blue egg (in a cubby this time). This cubby, the top left, appears to be a favorite with quite a few of the hens. Penelope was observed later in the day trying to spend some Alone Time in there, when Lee Smith approached and pecked her mercilessly on the head. Eventually Lee Smith snapped Penelope's comb so hard she went tumbling out of the coop. Lee Smith then hopped into the favored cubby and snooped around, probably looking for an egg to eat. Disappointed, she strolled along the perch to make it clear whose territory it was. The Knife hopped up on the perch and was quickly shooed away with a few well-placed pecks to the torso. She flapped away, but not before vowing revenge. The Knife is clearly below Lee Smith in the pecking order, but is quite well respected by the other hens for even attempting to enter the coop after Penelope's awkward displacement. Lee Smith remains unperturbed by any revenge vows, hexes, or stink eyes. "This is my coop, ya hear? I tole you already: I HAVE THE DEED!"

Lee Smith

I'm Lee Smith. I'm a Black Star hen. I have a masters degree in Physics and you can sometimes catch me in a top hat masquerading as Jonas P. Wilkerson. I flew the coop last year and took off to Hawaii, but now I'm safely back in Masala's yard where I enjoy eating the eggs of my fellow hens. Probably because I have this degree in physics, I'm the only chicken who figured out the ideal beak trajectory necessary to break open an egg in fewer than five pecks. You simply take the square root of the diameter of the egg at its widest point and adjust for variables such as the outside atmospheric pressure and the thickness of the shell based on the calcium intake of the hen in question, then multiply that by the length of the vector between the point of my beak and the meridian of the eggshell. You can easily tell me apart from the other Black Stars because I always wear this orange anklet.

P.S. I have the deed!