Cooper the catken snuggles in a nesting box with eggs recently at Purple Shamrock Farm in rural Seymour.

Hi, dear readers. It’s me again, your favorite small town hen, Gertie.

Something recently has moved into the chicken coop, and let me tell you, this thing does not belong sleeping where my ladies and I sit for our quiet time to lay our daily eggs and contemplate life.

Through the years, I’ve tolerated roosters that think they are God’s gift to hens, multiple dogs and cats, but never in my seven years have I seen a cat that thinks it owns one of our nesting boxes. I mean, come on, do you think we want to nestle down into a comfy place for our most intimate activity of laying with straw and cat hair?

The other day, the Mutha Clucka entered our coop to fill our feeder and waterer and, of course, steal our eggs, and then I saw her grab a bag of food especially for this out-of-place creature. She calls it a kitten and says it’s a baby. Now, being a hen, I have the desire to mother things, but I don’t know that a kitten is something I want snuggled next to me.

When one of my hen friends, Shamrock, went to sample what had been put into the new resident’s bowl, that I understand she has called Cooper, Shamrock was quickly shooed away and told this food was only for the kitten.

How dare the Mutha? I mean, we’re chickens and eat all kinds of things, and those brown morsels in Cooper’s bowl did look mighty tasty. Why couldn’t we share? After all, the feline is sleeping in one of our sacred nesting boxes. It seems only fair.

It’s strange the way this kitten tolerates the Mutha petting him and cooing to him. He seems to have a huge appetite, too. She barely fills his bowl, and he has eaten all of the food and is ready for more.

Mutha talks a lot about his job, which is to catch mice, and I do hope she’s right on that. There is nothing worse than getting settled in for the night and then seeing a flash of movement that you know is not the chicken on the roost next to you. Perhaps this thing will actually be useful.

I have no idea what’s going to happen when he outgrows the nesting box that he’s sleeping in. He seems to be growing more and more every day. He’d better not think he can have my top roost in the coop. I’ll have some words to say about that.

I suppose at my ripe old age, I need to turn with the times, and if there’s a kitten that identifies as a chicken, I’ll have to learn to be OK with it. Just don’t ask me to snuggle up to it any time soon.

Gertie is the oldest bird at Purple Shamrock Farm LLC in rural Seymour. Send comments at [email protected]

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