The Chickens Are Scared
At least three of the chickens in that picture above are dead, actually, four. The rooster towards the foreground is soup, or was soup. He was big and beautiful and had a funny beard, but he was mean. The other ladies died of disease or to predators. A few are still alive, I think. Life’s not easy for a chicken without a fence. Once the ground thaws they’ll be chickens with a fence, I’ll see to that.
I went to go make sure that the chicken door was closed, it was. On my way back into the house I saw that one of the chickens was sleeping in a flower pot by the door, so I took her back to the coop, which I found to be empty apart from one rooster, Sunny, son of the soup.
My first thought was that they were all dead, so I went looking around the property in my underwear with a flashlight. They were all sleeping up in the rafters of the barn, pooping all over the new location of my woodshop. I couldn’t have that, so I climbed a ladder and put them away one at a time.
The last one got away and I had to chase them down, poor thing. Abby heard it because she was trying to sleep with a window open. She wasn’t sure if I caught a predator in the act, or if the predator was a human trying to steal our chickens.
The fact that all the chickens are scared to sleep in their coop makes me sad for them. When we kill our chickens we do it front of all the others because they don’t seem to care. They just go on about their day and maybe even lap up a bit of the blood. I suppose a fox coming in to take away their friend, kicking and screaming, is a bit more traumatizing. It shows that they have memory and expectations and fear. It also reminds me that I’ve been failing to protect them, which I don’t love.
Soon as the ground’s soft enough to dig I’ll order up some posts, it’ll have to be something like 25 of em. That’s a load of digging.
And it’s probably sooner than I’d like, too.
The ground was too soft to make it to Jack’s house today. Real soft and gooey, which is less fun now that being stuck in a car with a hungry and sad baby’s a real possibility. Sorta changes your propensity to risk.