Chickens and kids No comments yet

At one point during the past week we looked out the living room window to see a chicken on our roof. What is that people say about chickens being unable to fly? She flew right back off the roof like it was no big deal.

We still haven’t moved the chickens back up to the pasture by the goats. We tried once and they managed to nearly all escape so we gave up for the time being. We discussed just moving them in to the ‘big girls’ coop like last year and letting the fencing idea go considering that this time last year we’d already lost several chickens, but Bengt was insistent that they should be moved. I’m not entirely sure why he has gotten so insist about it because he wasn’t particularly keen on it originally. I was the driver out of my concern for their well being and struggling with losing so many.

Our revised plan is to clip their wings (or flight feathers really) so they can’t fly since we think that is how they are escaping. Clipping their wings necessitates providing them a protected area as well though since they can’t fly to escape predators.

On Sunday we set out to clip their wings in the afternoon before realizing that catching chickens during the day time is still challenging at best. I managed to catch the first one and we clipped her feathers and turned her loose again. The girls were determined to catch the rest (we have 15 total) and set about stalking the chickens. Celeste managed to catch the same chicken with the already clipped wing several more times. I was starting to think she liked being handled. Eva even walked up to her and pet her a couple times. Celeste continued to pursue the chickens long after Eva had given up and apparently managed to catch a second chicken yesterday and they clipped her wing.

It’s so much fun to watch these normally protected, suburban girls jump right in to the rural life. Once they realized the chickens weren’t going to thrash or try to hurt them (and are actually quite soft to the touch) they were all about picking them up. Interestingly the girls are much more successful at getting close enough to the chickens to grab them as well. I think for some reason their smaller stature makes them seem less threatening or something.

We still need to finish the chore in earnest and move them up to the pasture, particularly since someone accidentally ran over their water fount down by the house. They’ll be much happier up there.