Let's talk about my idiotic chickens

Sometimes things are more work than they’re worth. Right now my chickens are falling into that category. 

Remember the amazing chicken run we started and almost finished building over Memorial Day weekend? It spent all of summer  (and up until this last week) needing the wire portion of the last three upper panels put in. And remember our three newest chickens that we got this spring in order that we might have fresh layers to eventually replace our older hens who have started to lay sporadically instead of every day?  Well they spent all summer flying over the low fence and free ranging all over our backyard. 

Store bought eggs! :(

We haven’t collected many eggs all summer. But then a few weeks ago we reached a new low. We ran out of eggs. I had to buy eggs. I haven’t had to buy eggs in three years. It was pretty depressing, and I felt like a mini-farming failure, on top of being overwhelmed by the demands of six kids, and a house, etc. etc. I vowed that when I had a spare moment, I was just going to chop the heads off of all the chickens and eat them for dinner and start fresh in the spring. 

One day we couldn’t find Belle. Belle is one of our new chickens, the black and white spotted one. Aaron wanted to go searching for her before work, but I told him to let it go and see if she came back on her own. Chickens like to roost in the same place every night, so I figured she’d gone wondering in the corn field but would be back. I joked to Aaron that she probably had some secret nest out in the field that she was hoarding eggs in, and we laughed because we were pretty sure she hadn’t started laying yet. Belle turned up in the backyard late in the afternoon, and we didn’t give another thought to it. 

Several mornings later, I was in my rocking chair feeding Cal, when Adelia came running into my room. 

“Mom! Belle laid 32 eggs!!”

Of course I was skeptical. “32 eggs? Are you sure you don’t mean 2 eggs?” Del has quite the imagination, you see. 

“No, Mom, 32!”

“Right. Bring them here I want to see.” I said, now thinking it was one of Adelia’s many imaginary animal games. 

But she faltered for a half second and said, “All of them?”

“Of course.”

“Well…..”, she hesitated, “The boys are putting them on the counter right now.”

And that’s when I knew there was more to this than some fantasy version of Wild Kratts and the Chicken Eggs that Adelia had dreamed up. 

I went downstairs, and sure enough, the boys were bringing in shirt-fuls of brown eggs. 

What the heck?!

Turns out, Ivan and Adelia had been outside playing Jaguar by the woodpile. They saw Belle hiding under a little cat-sized club house Lincoln had nailed together out of old boards, and thought they’d chase her back to the coop. When Ivan looked through the cracks in the board, he saw about 5 eggs and went to retrieve them. But when he got under there, there was a whole pile of eggs, 32 to be exact, that Belle had been secretly sitting on under there. Which means she’s been laying for about a month and no one knew!

(Yes, I did actually make them carry all the eggs back outside so I could take a picture to send to Aaron. We broke 4 eggs in the process.) 

Something I learned: If you cover eggs in water and they sink, the eggs are still good. If they float, they are no good. I’m happy to report that all 28 remaining eggs were keepers. 

But Belle wasn’t done with her mischief. After we found her secret nest, she set out looking for a new one…in the neighbor’s backyard. 

Our neighbor came and told us a week or so ago that Belle was getting back there. And since then we have tried everything to stop her. We clipped her wings, finished the wire paneling on the fences making them higher, blocked off the ledge where she was jumping onto the top of the coop and then over the fence from, etc. 

But the stupid chicken is determined. (It’s probably a Type 3 chicken.) But every time she finds a new way over, we immediately put a stop to it. She just keeps finding more ways. 

I feel like we’ve tried so hard to solve the problem quickly out of courtesy to our neighbor. And then today animal control shows up at my door. Our neighbor has reported us to animal control. Lovely. We got only a warning, but next time the chicken gets out it’s a $300 fine. Seriously? $300 for a chicken? It’s not like she’s running around attacking toddlers or something. 

I’m not really upset at our neighbor, but frustrated.  I just wish she’d been a little more patient with us, since we are trying to solve the problem. 

Stupid idiot chickens. 

Now, more than ever before, I just want to move out to a large spread of land, with an orchard and no neighbors. Where my chickens can run crazy as they please.