These two.
The most unlikely pair of friends. Sidewinder is a VERY low chicken. She's of one of the batches of rescue layers that arrived years ago with clipped beaks and issues. She's also getting up there. Her distinguishing characteristic is a craven, cringing way of being in the world, that's really rather sad.
She got her name from the way she walks, around me or any other chicken, with her chin and belly almost on the ground, cross stepping over her own feet, and moving sideways. She's like a sidewinding snake, getting where she's going by sidling up to it. It's so extreme that I thought she was horribly sick the first time I saw her doing it, approaching a food dish nearly backwards, and bowing like the most obsequious court vassal.
Years. I always tried to help her by making sure she was eating enough, and she was also usually dressed in a coat, because (likely due to her nervous disorder) she was perpetually naked on her back from molting. Sometimes a jacket is a status bump for a chicken, and at least it protects from pecks.
Then this chick happened.
Apples the original long-term house chicken, grew up, and went broody, and sat on eggs. I was overjoyed because I really wanted Apples' offspring by nature or nurture. It did not go well. Apples hatched one chick, and rejected it and failed to finish her eggs. A sturdy and reliable other mama got enlisted to take over, when I found the eggs cooling and the chick nearly dead.
This chick was a little different, mostly by attitude. She was a little larger, hatched a few days before her step-mom's real chicks, but then very early left the family and went independent, even moving up into the big girls' coop when she was still just palm-sized. A real go-getter.
Shortly after the family break, I noticed this liaison. Sidewinder, and the newly dubbed Sidekick, were inseparable.
Everywhere together, perching, grooming, eating, bathing, snuggling. Adorable. Sidewinder's head came right up and she walked like a normal chicken. She switched which coop she slept in.
The chick is of mysterious provenance. With the feathered feet, I thought she was a Silkie. But then her feathers came in smooth, not furry, with nary a comb, but no headdress either. We even thought she was an albino, her skin is all over pale, but she has black eyes. It's a total mystery. She doesn't look like any other chickens (I still think it's a she). While Sidekick is perfectly appropriate, the name jumping out for him/her is Ghost.
Now, Ghost is nearly full grown. The two of them have moved into Silkieland. Here they are contemplating the move.
Silkieland is a fenced enclosure in the greenhouse that the Silkie tribe lives within, so they don't get beat up or out-competed by the bigger chickens. It's open at the top, so the big birds can and do jump in, but that usually goes badly. Typically they get immediately attacked by a horde of small shrieking furry Furies (You don't belong here!), and the interloper jumps around trying to get out with alacrity. My mistake! I'm leaving, I'm leaving! Oh God, how do I get out? What have I done?! Visitors don't stay long.
The exceptions are Cleopatra, who decided the day I built their coop that she would lay her eggs in it, and has been jumping in and out every day since; Ketchup, who grew up so gentle and attached to her Silkie mother that she just lives with them; sometimes one of Ketchup biological sisters, who came for the food and stayed for the dust bath; and now Sidewinder and Ghost. I think they find it more peaceful in there, despite that the Silkies are a whiny, complain-y bunch, always in snits.
Sidewinder sleeps with the Silkies now, and Ghost sleeps in another coop, but first thing in the morning is jumping in to be with Auntie S.
Sidewinder is also out of her ratty coat now! She's regrown a full suit of feathers, and is indistinguishable from the other generic layers except that she lives with the Silkies.
