Never in a million years did I think we would one day have chickens! It’s a rather long story but a funny one indeed. My brother-in-law has a bunch of chickens and once in a while, Kevin, my husband, would bring home fresh eggs after visiting with his brother. Not only are the eggs delicious but they come from free-range, no hormone, no antibiotic chickens! I have a growing concern about our food supply but that story will have to wait until another time.
We’ve tossed the idea around about getting our own chickens so we, too, would have fresh, healthy eggs. But this idea remained just that….an idea. Where would we put them? Would Daisy kill them? How would we keep them in our yard? Do we really need something else to take care of? Where would we find the time? The questions seemed to outweigh the answers so it remained an idea for many months. UNTIL…..
Kevin works with an investor that had a house on a land contract. The people living in the house defaulted on the contract and had to leave. They left alright…..they left cat and dogs in the house, they left trash all over the yard and left four chicken roaming the property. Unbelievable! The dogs and cats were rescued but what about the chickens? Well, a few days later, we decided it was now or never but before putting in a lot of time fixing them a coop, Kevin wanted to make sure they were still at the house.
After church one Sunday, Kevin, Ryan and I stopped by the house to check on the chickens and there they were huddled under some bushes. My hubby and son decided, heck, we are here, there is a cage to put them in, we might as well try to catch them and take them home now. Here’s the funny part……. the chickens had come out from under the bushes and were now huddled behind a grill up against the house. Kevin took an old towel and Ryan had an old blanket……..one on the left side of the grill and one on the other side…..they moved in slowly and when they got close enough to try to catch them the chickens panicked and started squawking and flying. Ryan (not realizing chickens can fly and to be honest, I didn’t think of it either) jumped back and let out quite a yell! Then they went chasing the chickens around the yard! It was quite a sight. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Needless to say, the chickens didn’t come home with us that day.
After a couple of other attempts to "catch" the chickens, Kevin decided instead to go over to the house after they had roosted at dusk and shut them inside the coop and then go back over in the morning to put them in the cage since they were confined inside the coop. Kevin had converted our kid’s old playhouse into quite a nice little chicken coop so we were ready to bring them home.
Now, the first night that the chickens were here, Kevin tried to get them in the coop for the night. Since they were new to their surroundings, we didn’t think they would know to go into their new coop. In his attempt to get them inside the coop he spooked them and they flew into a nearby tree and slept there the first night. The second night, the same thing happened but this time, Kevin climbed the tree and got them down! (impressive huh?) I told him not to do any of these things without me watching as I needed some good laughs!! A few days later someone told Kevin that he should have let them out of the cage in the coop and kept them confined inside for a day or two so they knew that was their new home. Live and learn, right?!?
Anyway, all is well. The chickens now go to roost at dusk all by themselves. They stay in the yard and Daisy has gotten use to them and best of all, we have delicious healthy eggs every day!
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