Story of the lost chicken…..(has a happy ending)

I have been amazingly busy, but I wanted to get these photos out before the weekend. Why? Because I will be taking new ones this weekend!! I bet the chicken babies have really grown.

Well, first of all, one of the chickens got out of the fence. I am assuming she got onto the old dog house and then just flew or jumped over the fence. Why? Because Brando the bully got into the fence and scared the heck out of them. He trapped the one and I am sure would have killed it if we had not gotten there in time. I don’t think he is mean, and he did not want to eat the chicken, but he is worried that any living thing on earth is a threat to his food. Side note: He threw up the other day and then guarded it for a long time. He would not allow another dog near. Anyway, this was Friday evening when he scared the life out of that poor chicken. We hunted and hunted and hoped for the best. Saturday, still no chicken. We looked under everything and figured she was dead somewhere. Well, late on Saturday Carrie saw the chicken on the other side of the fence, a bit up the mountain. We quickly put feed near the fence to keep her there, and Ann s l o w l y crept around the back of the fence in hopes of catching her. Long story short, Ann had me open the window of the chicken house, which was near where the chicken was. Within about thirty seconds, she hopped, happily I might add, into the hen house.

I have finally named the chickens. There is now way I can tell them all apart, so I just named them by breed. The Aracanas are all Billie Jean. Remember that movie from the 80’s where a teen aged girl ran away and people started hanging signs all over in support of her? I think it was called “The Legend of Billie Jean.” So, the runaway was an Aracana…thus they are called Billie Jeans. The Rhode Island Reds are all named Reba. They are thin and red headed. The babies are all Gidget. the photo below is one Billie Jean and one Reba. This was Ann’s dad’s work shop and is now the hen house. It is only a third of it, and it is plenty of room. We are going to move the table at the left and the the red thing at the right. We need to make nesting boxes soon.

These are the Gidgets. They are becoming speckled and will eventually be black and white tweed.They are very friendly.

These are the Rebas and the Billie Jeans.

This is the runaway Billie Jean.  She was very happy to be home.

We spend the day securing the hen yard. We do not want them to fly out, nor do we want something to fly in to get them. We have to think of hawks and also coyotes. We were going to put chicken wire across the whole yard area, but that stuff was not easy to work with. So, we found the plastic chicken fencing and use that. It was a much easier task. I know it will not keep the coyote out if they really wanted to get it and had brought their scissors, but it will be a deterrent. We will think of something to make it coyote proof next. We actually thought of barbed wire on the edges of the fence, but that stuff is hard to work with. Suggestions?????

Ann’s dad built that dog house for RD years ago. When he built something, he built something. It is so dang heavy that three of us could not carry it. So, we pushed it to the middle, and it will give the chickens a home away from home. They will technically be free range, within reason. They can come and go from the chicken house into the yard. It is about 15 x 40, so I think they will have plenty of room.