I moved to an island where chickens run wild

Moved to Cayman Brac, and they have chickens like the US has squirrels. Can’t afford to build any kind of chicken pen or buy feed right now, but I’m working up to it. In the meantime, I will on and off feed them rice, corn, sourdough bread crumbs, tortillas scraps, and some other mixed veggies. So far I’ve got one chicken (don’t really know if it’s a girl or boy but I call her May) who started hanging out as a baby and now is the only chicken who actually comes up to me and will sometimes eat out of my hand. I also put out water for them that I try to refill a few times a day.

First five photos are how it started (Rodney the rooster, his mistresses Mary and Martha, and little Miss May). All the rest are how it’s been going (Rodney’s keep bringing around other ladies and LOTS of them being babies of all stages from teeny ones to gangly teenagers!).

May is the little chick from the first few photos; she is the larger black chicken with the white stripe on her wing in the third from last photo. I’m assuming it’s a “she” because I don’t see any rooster developments, but what do I know 🤣 She is a loner mostly, though she adopted a group of about 4 teenage chickens recently. Otherwise, Rodney and the other Moms tend to push her away when they’re all feeding and she starts to make weird squawks that sound like she is annoyed or sad or upset 😢

It’s been five months and I wish the other chickens would warm up to me but they still scatter if I make any sudden movements. However if I sit on the front steps after throwing the food, they will come out after a few minutes and eat.

(EDIT: The pallets you can see are an extremely early attempt to MAYBE one day make a DIY chicken coop. For now it’s a little shelter for scared chicks 😅)