I've been busy with other pursuits and didn't have time to make entries, so essentially here's what has happened.

Mildred spent a few days in jail by herself and really perked up. At the beginning of this week, I let her out, and Bob jumped her three times in the first five minutes. In the evening she was in the goat pen and didn't want to move again, so I locked her back up.

I let her out again last night and by this morning she was looking bedraggled again. But that's all right. There's another distraction. This morning my wife and I went and picked up four pullets - two New Hampshire Reds, a Rhode Island Red and a Production Red. We came back and I cleaned out Mildred's jail and put them in.

Bob, who was in the goat pen with Mildred, knew something was up right away because he heard the Reds clucking. He started crowing nonstop for about fifteen minutes. Finally he came over, looked inside the coop and started cooing at them. The goats scared him off, but he was back in a few minutes. He went inside this time and peeked at them, then started chittering up a storm.

He's spent the rest of the afternoon running from the coop to check on the Reds to the goat barn, where Mildred is hiding. That if nothing else should use up some of that extra energy he's been directing Mildred's way.

I also did a couple of chicken chores. I nailed up the ladder to the high nest boxes where the Rosses don't go, and I raised the floor nest boxes off the ground with a couple of old bricks. Put up a low roost in the back of the coop and installed an extra light with a reflector that will go on a timer sometime soon.

In about a week I'll let the Reds go and see what happens. The woman I bought them from said he has (or was it had?) a large rooster like Bob, and she pointed out a few ex-chickens in the snow that had been crushed by his amorous advances. So I'm going to have to keep an eye on things. I may have to get a smaller roo and use Bob as a watch Rooster or something.