Watermelon? Check.

One of the funniest things about being a chicken owner is watching their reaction to new food. As I've complained often enough, all our squash was wiped out this past season and that included our watermelons. At the end of the season we had some half ripened melons on the verge of mush in the garden and I sliced one open with a shovel to investigate the insides. It actually looked pretty good, but I would be damned if we were going to eat it. So, what do you do with questionable produce?

You see if the chickens will eat it!

I'll tell you what, I love our chickens, but man they are dumber than a bag of hammers. When I threw the melon halves in their pen, they looked at the fruit quizzically for maybe a moment before one voluntarily buried their beak into the red frosty flesh. (I wonder how they figure who the Guinea pig is. Is it decided over a mental game of paper-rock-scissors?) After the first took a bite and didn't die immediately (hmm, intelligence? nah) the others joined in. What followed looked like a pack of feathered alligators eating a gazelle.