A Bird and a Bunny

You know those cute videos that show up on the internet of the unlikely animal friends? Well, I have one for ya. Introducing “Feathers” and “Bunny”.

A little background. From time to time we end up getting a rouge “neighborhood” chicken in our back yard. It started about three years ago when a pair showed up out of no where “bawking” and scratching up the yard. At first, I was annoyed because, well, we live in a suburban neighborhood. We’re all decked out with cookie cutter houses and HOAs. There should be no chickens where we are. Who dares to bring chickens here?? Chickens clucking and disturbing my good sleep. But after a while I got used to it.

Then the next year the neighborhood got “Heni”. She made me fall in love with chickens. So much so that I wrote often of her on my Facebook statuses, making others enjoy our “Heni” adventures as well. That was one brave sistah, and such a joy to watch. She had so much personality!

And she was a survivor. She survived a hurricane, outwitted stray cats, foxes, and with our help a huge hawk that tried to swoop down on her in our back yard. If that hawk was gonna get Heni, it wasn’t gonna be on my watch! So, I sent Antoine out there to save her LOL.

We all loved Heni though, and I think she loved us back in a weird way. Even the dog looked after her – staring out of the patio door. She would walk right up to the patio door and peek inside LOL. And it didn’t matter how close she got, he never barked at her. Then one day, she never came back. All of us, including the dog went to the patio door day after day to watch out for her, to no avail. Whatever happened to Heni, if she met her demise, I know she didn’t go down without a fight. But, if whatever happened to her was a good thing – she deserves all the happiness she can get.

Now, we have “Feathers”. She got that name because early one morning my husband heard a brawl between a cat and that chicken and it sounded pretty bad. He woke up did his daily walk with the dog and got back and was like, “I think that chicken is gone.” There were feathers everywhere in the yard. BUT, to our surprise, one day she showed back up like nothing ever happened. I’m telling you, chickens are the bosses of the foul world.

Now to the point of the post. One morning we heard Feathers giving a “warning” bawk. We looked outside and there was this huge rabbit (the pictures really aren’t doing his size justice) – we named him Bunny. Feathers was having no parts of this rabbit near her. She is one….um…”cautious” bird. She’s no where near as brave as Heni when it comes to socialization lol. I would say it’s because of the cat incident, but really she was like that before then. Anyway, she bawked and bawked, but that rabbit paid her no attention. Day after day this happened until, there was no more bawking. Now, you catch them having morning breakfast and brunch, afternoon lunch, and mid day snack together. It’s the cutest thing. And when something that remotely looks like danger approaches, they give each other a quick glance and take off for the nearest bush.

I suspect that if they keep this up, they both will be around for a long time. The buddy system is working out for them so far. Which makes me wonder, seeing as how these two are both very much “free range” could this kind of arrangement work out on a homestead?

Have you seen “unlikely” pairs in your yard? On your homestead? Do they look out for each other? I’d love to hear more about them! Share your stories with us 🙂