Chicken...

I haven't had any time this year to do much blogging. I posted here and there about some of it, but in review I recall trips and visits, work (gratefully, of course), new floors in the house (thanks guys for advice and for the musckles), and then the coop...

I started looking for plans - or at least advice - on the Internet. I honestly underestimated the chicken crowd... I searched the Internet, read through catalogs, talked to people, etc. and "Wow!" I am surprised about the number of people who are cuckoo for chickens.

My experience with chickens was always getting eggs (sometimes with great caution around a grumpy hen), and getting another piece off of the platter on the dinner table...

When our chicks arrived, I was mildly amused that the girls thought they were pretty neat; but even my wife got in on it for a week or so. I got scared when the chicks got names, and got even more scared when the chicks got a photo session. You can imagine the dread I began to feel as I envisioned the fateful night we would be eating "Fluffy." (No, there is no Fluffy in our flock... I don't know their names, and if I did, I would change the names to protect the innocent...)

But all good things must end (mercifully), and my wife has recently issued an eviction notice - the chickens have to go outside, now. Funny, but now I find myself sort of attached, feeling a little scared for them and worried that they might get cold out there. Sure, they are two or three times larger now, and starting to get a stink to them, but still...

So, back to the Internet for a little insomniatic perusing to make sure that they will indeed be OK to move yet - oh, and to find out if it is normal for them to be tearing up bits of the newspaper and chasing each other around to get it. (Think tag, cute little chicken style... ...then think of it in fast-forward. Yes, that fast! Throw a bug in there and its like watching a scale version of Jurassic Park with little veloci-raptors...)

So, it turns out that chickens are indeed animals with God-given instincts and abilities - and apparently boredom too. I guess they need something to do... whoduthunk. Chickens need stuff to "do?"

I grew up in a rural area - but I guess I missed some of the finer points...

For the rest of us who know nothing about chickens, I found this site. http://www.backyardchickens.com/