Last year, having chickens was a blast.
Last year, having chickens was EASY.
Last year, I GOT IT!
I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy having chickens anymore. I love our chickens. They are the best!
I’m just saying that this year has been a very different chicken experience.
So much so, that this story is divided into multiple parts.
Because, chickens.
You see, last year, our chickens had no problems staying in their chicken run. They were happy and content to just stay in their place, close to their food. There was the occasional escape, but they stayed right next to the coop, so it was never a problem.
But this year, things changed.
As these chickens entered their adult years, they decided they were independent chickens. Ready to explore the world. Live life on their own terms.
They all, one by one, flew the coop. I’m pretty sure this is where that phrase came from.
And like all sheltered children who find themselves with an entire world at their feathertips, they began to run amok. Exploring their new independance, they realized they could do just about anything.
At first, they would wander to the same area everyday. All six of them, hanging out by the lilacs. Like a little posse, ready to do their worst to the bugs taking over those lilac bushes. They were a team. A group of misfits in buggy battle
It’s fine, we thought. Everyone told us how great free range chickens are. They get rid of the tick population! They are doing us a service.
But, like college students, with their first steps out the door, they began to explore their new possibilities. They found new areas to wander. New bugs to devour. It was 16 acres of bug heaven to them!
Until they found my flowers.
Newly into the spring, I had envisioned scatterings of fresh, beautiful flowers throughout my flower bed. I had carefully raised them from seeds through march and april and had lovingly placed them in their new homes in the ground, dreaming of the colorful collage of blooms I would soon have.
But then, the chickens.
Oh those chickens. They suddenly discovered my garden. Freshly dug dirt and bugs turned over for the picking. It was like an insect buffet and I had given them the plate.
They took to that garden like it was $2 Tuesday at the Golden Corral (yeah, I know the Golden Corral doesn’t have a $2 Tuesday but it sounded good). All 6 of them. A gang of flower killers set on destruction. And destroy they did. They pecked, they scratched, they ROLLED in my flowers. My baby sprouts never saw it coming.
I’d see it happening and go running out, arms raised, yelling and screaming “GET OUT OF MY FLOWERS!”
And they would just look at me and continue their rampage. They were a gang. They weren’t backing down. If one goes, they all go.
So then I got my hose. And realized that if I put my thumb over the spout, I could get all six of them in a watery shower. It worked! They went running! And I sprayed them every chance I found them in my garden. If they were tough, I was tougher. And I wanted that garden.
So, when they realized the garden wasn’t going to happen, they began to explore even more areas. And our property was no longer enough for them.
They were ready to see the world.
Or, in this case, the neighbor’s yard across the street.
I look out my window one day to see the whole group running across the street. Cars, racing past them like they don’t exist.
In my head, All I can picture is feathers flying everywhere as a car runs into the whole 6 of them, destroying our flock in one blow.
So I throw on my shoes as I am yelling to the boys to come help save the chickens. And I run across the street.
And what do those brainless chickens do? They scatter.
Now I have 6 chickens all over the place, running in all directions. Into the yard, into the road, cars are driving past, and I find myself sinking into the mud because this is spring in Vermont and everything is mud. So I grab two long sticks and shepard those birds back across the street, waving my sticks and yelling my flock back to safety as they run in circles and take moments to poop in the middle of the road.
You’d think all of this would train these birds to stay closer to their home. That the trauma alone of me screaming and running at them would teach them something.
But they are birds of little brain. And soon, several times a day, I would look out the window to find them in my garden or across the street. I spent my days running around chasing chickens.
And then things got real rough. Because now my chickens were causing traffic problems. People were slowing down or stopping to let my chickens cross. They were getting out of the car to help me chase them back. Cars were backed up because of my chickens. Me and my chickens were now a traffic violation.
We had two options.
Either put up a sign that said “slow down, dumb chickens” or figure out a way to keep them in their area.
We opted for corralling them. It sounded like a far less exhausting option for me, who could no longer get anything done because I was watching and chasing chickens all day.
So tyler put netting all around the run high enough to keep those chickens in. We have yet to have a problem with these chickens. We eventually want to make a run that we can let them in and out of easily so they can free range during times we are keeping an eye on them, but it wasn’t in the budget this year.
But next year, we have big plans for these chickens!