Saturday, July 25

Long observation...

I spent the bulk of my Friday afternoon at my kitchen table. I was meeting with our Landscape Designer later in the day and wanted to at least appear organized.

I have a clear view of the coop from my kitchen window. I noticed that there was a gap in the temporary chicken fencing we have attached to the coop. This gap seemed to be the exact size and shape of my son CHRISTIAN, grrrr. I watched and watched waiting for the great chicken escape of summer 2009. I wonder if an IQ test has been created for chickens. I think ours are dumb as rocks!

Almost 3 hours later, I noticed the first chicken attempting an exit. Once she got out... she cackled up a huge racket and the party was ON!!

Freedom, whoo-hoo. Never mind it took them forever to even notice, they made the most of the mayhem. Actually, I hope to let them freerange during the day more once the area has additional prep work done. The coop is where we will shoo them for safety during the night.

Chicks gone wild. There rendezvous can NOT be termed quiet or sneeky!

And there is Mr. Roo, of whom I have a tad bit of a crush. Remember that he is a miniature? See how much smaller than the hens he is? Don't worry though, he has the 'little man' disease... which means he doesn't know he's dinky... and the hens let him think what he wants.


So after letting them enjoy some free time, I called Christian to inform him of his error in leaving the chicken wire gaping open. And told him to round'em up. He calls this ring around the rosies... chicken edition...

First you open the coop door,

He slowly walks around the back of the coop calmly flapping his arms,

And the chickens traipse right into the coop to avoid the odd fella doing the chicken impersonation.

There are no feathers ruffled in this process.

All are safely gathered and cackles have returned to a reasonable volume.

PS - still no fresh eggs, grrrrr. I called the hatchery this week and asked them a few questions. The window of time for egg production starting is much larger than I had first read. Seems it could take up to 4 more weeks possibly. Delayed gratification is not one of my finer points.

7 comments:

MrsMama said...

Your chickens are too funny! At least your little rooster isn't prone to sudden and unprovoked attacks, unlike *another* rooster I know. He IS very handsome BTW.

I think your coop is the cutest chicken coop ever built.

Beth said...

Your coop is stinking adorable! What a fun time you seem to be having!

Quincy Sorensen said...

Oh, those farm fresh eggs will be worth the wait . . . .

Debbie said...

haha.. I'd like to see Christian doing the chicken dance ;-)

Theresa Cyr said...

I LOVE your Mr. Roo! He's beautiful! A friend of mine has one like him, but not a miniature. He struts around cock-a-doodle-doing all over the place. I thought they only did that at the crack of dawn? We had chickens a few years ago, but we could never get them to produce eggs (I think we must have been missing a rooster now that I know better) and my husband didn't enjoy the "harvesting" process of our chickens, although they were quite tasty. I'd like to get them again, now that I know more what to do.

The Happy Haynie Family said...

This is all so much more vivid in my mind since visiting you! I am sorry though that I didn't get LaVor out to your place...maybe next time.

Elizabeth Mahlou said...

Oh, not all chickens are dumb. We live in a small town where chickens are protected and run wild. One mother abandoned her chick, and he grew up in our tree. We called him Er-er, because when he went through his adolescence, he had a good deal of trouble learning to crow. Er-er would wonder the neighborhood once he got older, but he brought his hens to us to show off. Talking about showing off, at times he would preen his feathers for me. And he always knew where to get breakfast! If he saw our car, he would run alongside it, and I worried about him getting hit, but he did not. Some mornings he was late in arriving for breakfast, and I would see him on a nearby street as I headed to work. I would yell at the car window, "Er-er, go home and get breakfast!" He would look up, see me (and it really seemed like he recognized me), and would take off running for our house. I would call my husband and tell him to get the food out fast because Er-er was on his way!