Chickens Under Fire!!!!

The air was thick with humidity and the thunderclouds were rolling in. We were cleaning out the garage and getting sweaty with the dirty dusty air we were kicking up from the brooms. The teasing of the cool storm air was starting to feel good, the cleaning was getting done, then it began. Thunder clapped and the rain came pouring onto our earth.

Two weeks prior to this, we were newbie chicken farmers with our sweet young pullets getting settled into their new coop. We were taking the newness in stride much like a young mother learns as her baby grows. Little by little we were making small victories as each stage of development took hold for our chickens. 

Then we adopted 33 loud, large and crazy chickens. 4 of which were roosters. Our friends needed a temporary shelter for their birds during a transition in their life and we had room. Our serene world of ease and slowly working towards full blown layers changed in minutes. My farming took to a whole new level and life was getting crazy!

Happy "new" chickens getting some grit

We built a very solid chicken coop with lots of protection for the birds to stay safe at night from all the wondering coyotes and other predators. We were very successful in getting them used to their new digs, all except for the temporary nesting boxes...as they were pooping all over, fighting over one space and laying eggs in bizarre places. 

See the chicken underneath trying to steal the place of the red hen?

The outside time was a little more exciting as the electro-netting we were using from the owners was glorified snow fencing because there was no charger for it here. It didn't seem to be a large problem in the first few days as the birds mostly loved all the dandelions we had provided for them. A few birds would get loose and we would chase them down and get them back in. But all in all, no harm was done. That is until one of our roosters decided to wander over to our neighbor’s yard where their large dog decided to "play" with the rooster and played a little too hard. First casualty. 

So back to our stormy day...the rain was pounding the earth outside our garage, but the clean air smelled and felt great. We were having a great start to the day...until we saw a very wet rooster, running for his life. He cruised by our garage heading for our neighbors to the north. WHAT?!? 

"Kids! Get your mud boots on, we have to go grab that bird!" 

No sooner had those words come out of my mouth, when we saw another rooster and his hens bookin' it across our yard to our neighbors! What is going on? Two of my kids ran to try and "herd" those chickens back to the barn and then I saw the culprit down by the barn. Our neighbor's dog was chasing the other hens into the barn and cornering them. Feathers were flying! 

The neighbor girl who had been over with us ran to go get her dog. The thunder was all around us, the rain was pelting us and chickens were scared out of their mind. I caught up with her by the pole barn where she had grabbed her dog. We were looking around at all the chicken feathers scattered on the ground in utter disbelief, at the insanity of it all. Was there any casualties? We quickly peeked around the corner to where the fencing started and in the fence there was one really scared hen caught in the fence. We helped set her free and then we saw it...casualty number two. The neighbor girl promptly took her dog to her house to lock it up and I tried to get my bearings. Wet dead bird. Gross. A gazillion terrified birds running loose in the storm. Nuts. I think I want to go back to bed.

The kids decided to try and grab the birds one by one and haul them into the coop. We were all wet, muddy and grumpy at the situation. We managed to gather 15 of the birds safely in coop. The other hens were under the front porch of our house. I figured they would come out when the storm was over. There was one in the garage tucked up so tight in a corner underneath a shelf, we could barely see her, but she was there. That first crazed rooster? He headed for the hills. With all the birds we could muster were safe in the coop, we decided to go inside and relax till the storm blew by. 

As the birds started surfacing one by one, we got the birds in the coop. We counted 27 birds. Still missing some. "They'll surface eventually," we thought. I got the inside waterers all filled as the humidity was back with a vengeance and the heat was starting to pour in. Don't want more dead birds from heat-stroke! It was time to fix the fencing. As I climbed over the netting, I realized in horror that there were two dead birds to take care of...not to mention that our neighbor girls thought they saw a dead one in the field. 

I think this would be a great time to let you in on a little secret of mine. I'm scared of picking up birds. Happy birds, little birds, big birds, dead birds...not a fan of holding them. I'm chicken to pick up chickens...I know, seems weird that I wanted to have chickens and I'm not fond of the whole holding chicken thing. The good news is that my two oldest kids aren't scared and are affectionately known as my chicken wranglers. It's a problem I'm bound to overcome through this adventure of chicken raising. I have to. No way around it. Some day when my kiddos are all grown up, who' s gonna be wrangling chickens then? Moi! But I digress...back to the story.

3 dead chickens. 

3 wet dead chickens. 

3 wet dead chickens lying in the blistering sun. 

3 wet dead chickens lying in the blistering sun with swarms of flies around them.

1 big chicken that looks like me holding a bucket and wearing gloves and hyperventilating at the prospect of picking up these...these...ugh! I have to do it! 

After talking myself through this and praying for the Lord to help me through this, I went into action. Wincing at the weight of the lifeless bird in my gloved hand I threw it in the bucket and it landed with a thud. One done, two to go. As sweat was trickling down me, hauling a dead chicken around in a bucket and being brave to pick up the next two, I was thinking about how much I was growing in this single act of dead chicken removal. Thinking about how I taught my kids that sometimes to get over our fears we have to meet them head on and face it. Realizing that I was experiencing exactly that, I mustered up the strength to keep trudging through muddy fields with a very heavy bucket full of dead chickens.

That was my day yesterday. That was a growing experience. That was a true test of moving forward as a farmer or retreating back to the safety of a sterile environment where everything was packaged nice and neat. Farming isn’t always idyllic and beautiful with the meadows full of flowers and cattle gently grazing in the fields. There is death and there is fear and there is definitely going to be things that gross you out. 

And if you were wondering, Mr. Fancy Pants, the rogue rooster who headed for the hills, came back after hearing his fellow rooster crowing in the now safe confines of the hen pen. 

April