Speckled Sussex are pretty chickens.

We purchased and raised a few chicks last spring.

We have one rooster and three hens (maybe four—–they’re hard to count—–they move too quickly).

 

One enterprising hen recently hatched out a brood in our horse trailer.

 

 

 

Not that surprising…………….they’ll lay and set on eggs just about anywhere…

 

 

 

But our horse trailer doors are always shut.

We do have livestock slat openings along the top of the back of the trailer.

 

But they are not that wide, and very difficult for a fat, gravity-challenged hen to fly up to in order to gain access to the inside of the trailer.

……………somehow she managed…

But wait………………..

There’s more………………..

This is the same horse trailer that followed my truck and went flying down #I-75 to Wimauma to Mary Constance’s to pick up Addy and bring her back home……………….the return trip was equally fast.

Visualize this……………..over one hour each way at speeds in excess of 70 mph.

One way———no horse.

 

The other way———loaded with a big horse staring at the wind-swept hen (who was ensconced in the hay).

 

 

Now in hindsight, that explains why Mary Constance’s Jack Russells, Black-Mouth Cur, and Wolfhounds were so interested in getting into and snuffling around my trailer.

We kept shooshing them out.

 

Fortunately they didn’t locate the broody hen………………phew………………that could have been ugly.

 

~~~~~I ultimately found our world-traveled hen about a week later…………….comfortably settled in the same place with her passel of eggs.

I decided it would probably be the safest just to leave her there to hatch out her babies.

The inside of the horse trailer was probably safer than the chicken coop.

Apparently the father of some of the chicks is one of our Black Jersey Giants.

I’m looking forward to see how the mix matures.

We do have a Speckled Sussex rooster………..but…

…………………………..the hen’s not talking.