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.

Bartleby/Pollywollydoodah

I'm a Black Star hen and I think my name is Bartleby. When Cedar comes over to visit, he calls me Pollywollydoodah. I don't really care, because I'm a chicken and I don't respond to the sound of my own name. Sometimes the other hens try to get me to proofread their chicken scratch or rearrange the straw in the cubbies, but I'm like, "Uh, I would prefer not to." I sometimes respond to bribes in the form of food, especially corn cobs and melons cut in half, but mostly I keep to myself. You can tell me apart from the other Black Stars because I have a small comb, no anklet and very black feathers.