Love those animals while they hate you!

My husband loves animals and birds of all kinds, but sadly, his loving feelings are not always reciprocated. He was in the back yard with his chooks on Sunday, and suddenly appeared in the kitchen nursing his arm. I followed him into the bathroom to see what he'd done, and he showed me a 3" gash on his forearm. He'd been checking the bantam hens for lice and mites, picking them up and ruffling their feathers (excuse the pun). It seems that Matt (the rooster) took exception to Ken feeling up his hens, so he flew at Ken and clawed his arm. Ken said he wasn't upset by the attack; Matt was only doing his job, protecting his hens from what he saw as potential harm.

Pity Matt didn't think about that the week before when they were all out in the yard scratching around in the garden. Ken was cleaning the aviaries, and couldn't see the chooks from where he was. So when he heard a commotion, he rushed out to see what it was about, and found two hens being chased by one of the cats from next door. I heard him yelling at the cat, so I came outside, and saw Ken extricating one of the hens from behind a pile of bricks where she'd hidden herself. The other hen was nowhere to be seen. After a few minutes we spotted her in the yard next door. Fortunately nobody was home (we don't get on with those neighbours), so Ken climbed over the fence and tried to catch the hen. But she was having a good time and had no intention of being caught, so she flew into the yard at the back of our place. We get on with these people, so I phoned them, and the lady came out into her yard, and shooed our hen back over the fence, where Ken was waiting with a net.

While all that was going on, where was their lord and master? Matt was busy having a dustbath over the other side of the yard, and not at all concerned about his hens being turned into dinner for a hungry cat!

Ken's animal-love-turned-sour episodes continued tonight. He came into the kitchen and showed me a bleeding wound on his hand. He'd bent down to pat Topsy as he walked past the chair where she was curled up, and she bit him! "That's it" he said. "I'm over cats. All of them. Topsy has spoilt the fun of cats for me now".
It wasn't a good time for Sharon to phone and ask if we would like to take her naughty kitten Matilda in with us. Of course she was joking, but we understood where she was coming from.