Meet Mona. Mona moans.

Each of our hens has a unique personality. From the day we brought her and the other buff and black chickens home in a cardboard box, Mona was different.

We read in children’s books what sounds animals make. Some storytellers get it right. Some dogs really do sound like a woof! Some cats have been caught on film saying “I love you” and singing “Rock a bye, baby” but many do put out a meow. Birds tweet most of the time and now, so do millions of humans. Chickens do not say cluck cluck.

We can’t say what the NORM is for our chickens; each is unique, but Mona moans. It’s more like a scolding nag while jogging. One might interpret is as,
“Where-have-you-been-I-could-have-fainted-waiting-for-this-treat.” Sometimes she sounds like a car transmission going out, other times just the starter turning over.

Mona tells us if she’s laid an egg, if anyone else has laid an egg, how late we are to feed, how desperate she is for attention, if it’s hot out, cold or windy, and that another chicken got more at dinner than she did. But she does not cluck. She’s a moaner. She is so loud that I am afraid our neighbors will secretly throw a mean tomcat into the yard.

I wanted to return her but we would have only had two chickens, and even numbers in the chicken coop are not good. (Please refer to the intro blog.) She is so needy that she rushes the human leg in the coop and does the best cat impression I’ve ever seen—when the cat keeps you from taking a step. Realizing that she doesn’t know which way we are going to step, she stops. Hunkers down. We started reaching down and patting her. Pat, pat, moan. Pat, pat, moan. I think we’ve trained her that if she gets down, we’ll scratch her neck and pat her. Other hens look at her, then cock their head up and look at us, then down again. They wonder what in the world is wrong with her.

There’s one more thing. Her crown doesn’t stand up, it flops over to one side, making her look a little disheveled. A loud, needy, clumsy, busybody on a bad hair day. She would use a cell phone in a crowded waiting room and have 22 grocery items in the express line. But she has a good heart, she was tolerant of the younger additions when they moved in, she’s a good companion to her sisters, she’s a hard worker (she lays an egg almost every day) and she stops whatever she is doing to say hello.

And in this world you don't often find these attributes.