Oli Outs Himself and Everybody Else

To say "Oli gets his jiggy on" is the understatement of the year, well not counting that the year is only three days old. He is so full of his crowing and his dancing, and his stalking, and bossing, and puffing, shaking, strutting, self; that I'm afraid everyone within earshot is going to hold a moratorium to have him renamed Stew, and that's not short for Stewart.

The Sultan and his Harem of Two

Every morning sometime between five and six o'clock he lets at least four crows rip, then again at about 7:15. That's when I let him out of the coop, or shall I say facilitate the "Open up or I'm busting down this door" move.  Sleepily and a bit warily I approach the henhouse, or more accurately the chicken coop, NOT the Oliver Sultanate as HE would prefer. Earlier this winter I had hung a flappy rubber door over the opening at the top of the ramp into their sleeping quarters. On cold nights I balance a dustpan against the flaps to shore it up a bit more. It is my job as official "Release the Chickens! person"  to remove the dustpan so that the chickens can gingerly push their way through the flaps into the bright sunshine of the day. Oli of course stands first in line, and short of head butting the dustpan, barrels out through the flaps like a clown rolling into a circus ring. He continues down the ramp stylin' a la Jackie Chan until he scissor kicks into the great outdoors where he instantly morphs into Baryshnikof,  sweeping "a la seconde" in my direction,  and finishing with a pirouette.  All the while he fixes his beady eyes on mine illciitng either a full-on laugh at his rather girly antics, or depending on my mood a bellowing, "Bring it on!", and then under my breath , "You stupid beast."

Oli Shakes His Groove Thang

Beady stare....beeeee...deeee.....stare

I was telling our friend Clint about this, who seems to know more about chicken rearing than I.  He reported that his rooster challenged his wife Kate all the time, even though she kicked back at him while carrying a pitchfork or rake, or some such semi-lethal instrument. Clint felt that perhaps the rooster saw her as an adversary. He suggested picking the bird up and showing it some affection, to sort of break him down with looovve..uh huh! (Do I hear Barry White playing?) Willing to try anything, I decided to give it a go the next day.  I pulled him out of the side door effectively aborting any Chan/Baryshnikof moves, and quite surprisingly he tolerated my cudding! I placed him sweetly upon the earth and waited...all of two seconds before he started plié-ing and tour jete-ing, and once again fixing his beady stare on me.  Fine! Fine! We'll see who wins this fowl war!

Next up: A video of Oli impersonating Baryshnikof, and the continuing saga of woman versus rooster.