Fluster Cluck
....
The Mean Girls have not been allowing goofy Lydia and the New Girls to sleep on the main perch. Instead of sleeping on the second perch, Lydia and the New Girls have been sleeping in the nest boxes.
That sounds cute and cozy, if you don't know that chickens crap all night long. The nest boxes, from which we would gather eggs -- if every single hen weren't moulting -- were covered with chicken poop. This had to stop.
Robb and I discussed various options to keep the birds from fouling their nests at night, and finally arrived at the idea of sticking a salvaged baby-gate in front of the nest boxes before Chicken Bedtime.
There was much fussing in the hen house tonight. In the end, all the chickens roosted in the main perch. All except Lydia who glumly bedded down in the wood shavings. Lydia is one strange hen.
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I wrote this and then scheduled it to publish on Tuesday morning. When I got home from work on Monday night it was already dark (time change). The chickens had put themselves to bed, before Robb could move the gate in to place. The Mean Girls were teetering atop the gate, and everyone else was bedded down in the best boxes.
Suffice it to say that relocating six grumpy hens by the light of a cellphone is an activity from which no participant emerged with their dignity intact.
There's chaos in the hen house.
The Mean Girls have not been allowing goofy Lydia and the New Girls to sleep on the main perch. Instead of sleeping on the second perch, Lydia and the New Girls have been sleeping in the nest boxes.
That sounds cute and cozy, if you don't know that chickens crap all night long. The nest boxes, from which we would gather eggs -- if every single hen weren't moulting -- were covered with chicken poop. This had to stop.
Robb and I discussed various options to keep the birds from fouling their nests at night, and finally arrived at the idea of sticking a salvaged baby-gate in front of the nest boxes before Chicken Bedtime.
There was much fussing in the hen house tonight. In the end, all the chickens roosted in the main perch. All except Lydia who glumly bedded down in the wood shavings. Lydia is one strange hen.
***************
I wrote this and then scheduled it to publish on Tuesday morning. When I got home from work on Monday night it was already dark (time change). The chickens had put themselves to bed, before Robb could move the gate in to place. The Mean Girls were teetering atop the gate, and everyone else was bedded down in the best boxes.
Suffice it to say that relocating six grumpy hens by the light of a cellphone is an activity from which no participant emerged with their dignity intact.
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