Chicken Wranglin'

Question: How many Williams’ does it take to wrangle chickens?

Answer: Apparently more than three.

It all started with the garage chickens.  You know the ones; they laid their eggs on the work bench, the corner under the stairs and the hardware cabinet. 

The two hens co-parenting the nest on the bench had hatched another group.  I don’t like to say anything scandalous about them, but I’m pretty sure S. Truett Cathy would not serve them in his restaurants, if you get my drift.

Rosie, our Rhode Island Red, hatched hers under the stairs.  Poor Rosie isn’t the brightest chicken in the coop.  Last fall, she hatched a nest-full in the front yard and promptly left them to get some food.  They all died.  We almost called DCS (Department of Chicken Services) on her.  Thankfully, this time she stuck with it. 

Both Rosie and the other girls hatched dark black chickens with white chests.  They look exactly like penguins.  Now, the only black rooster we have is Oscar, the silkie.  And because he’s not as fast or as big as the other roosters, he doesn’t usually get to, ummm…socialize as much. So he’s naturally strutting around, beating his chest with his wings.  (Lesson for boys – you can be short and chubby and still get the girl!)

Finally, Drumstick was sitting in the cabinet.   And she was obviously sitting on rotten eggs.  I say obviously because it smelled like the inside of a sewage plant after a city-wide burrito festival.  Peee-ewww!  I couldn’t stand to walk it there.  Not to mention the fact that every time we needed a nail or screw, we had to look around on the floor to find it, since she’d knocked everything out of the cabinet.

All this is my round-about way of saying that we HAD to get those chickens out of there.  So we decided yesterday that we would just shoo them out.  Yeah…that was the plan.

Don started off this rodeo by trying to pick up the lovebirds and tossing them out the door. (Disclaimer: no chickens were hurt in the making of this blog.)  HOWEVER, these girls were not willing to go without their babies!  Nor would they let him pick up the chicks first and then move them.  No siree…they came flying back into the garage, talons first, and straight at Don.  They flogged and cackled, cackled and flogged.  It was a battle of epic proportions!  Finally he got the mommas out and one of the chicks.

If you don’t know it, chicks are fast. Not Olympic-level fast, but certainly college-level fast.  After about 15 minutes, we finally got two more cornered and sent out the door with their family.  The last one?  Well, it eluded us for a few hours.  I’ll get back to that one.

Next was Drumstick.  She was easy; he just reached in and grabbed her.  You see, she had been sitting in the cabinet for days and was practically comatose.  She hadn’t been out for food or water; her feathers were yellow from the eggs she had broken sitting on them; her comb was limp and falling over her face; and, best of all, she had a rotten egg stuck to her breast!  Underneath her was…nothing!  She had either knocked out or crushed all the eggs she had laid there.  All that smell for nothing!  I’m happy to say that she looks much better today.  The wild look is slowly leaving her eyes and the egg has been amputated.

Lastly, there was Rosie.  She was more willing to move, except that she moved into a different corner of the garage and barricaded herself in.  We had a chicken hostage situation on our hands.  Time to call in the hostage negotiators!  I got the skimmer from our luxurious blow-up pool.  Don shooed her out of the corner with it, then held her back while I got her three chicks.  Success!!  If only they all been that way.

The last chick – the one that escaped earlier – was the hardest.  Every time we’d get it close to the door, it would scurry back into some spot that we weren’t able to reach.  We would close the garage doors, wait until we heard it come close again, and then run after it.  The Keystone Cops had nothing on us!

Once Don finally got it shooed outside, it ran…straight into the dog lot.  Sigh…how was a tiny, one-inch chick getting the best of us?  After quite a few stressful minutes of hoping the dogs wouldn’t get it, we had it trapped under the grill.  Don stuck a broom underneath to push it towards the back, and I grabbed it from behind.  What a team!!

To make a long story even longer, all the hens and their chicks are outside and enjoying the bugs, grubs and feed they can find.  Right now, they are all under the giant fir tree next to our gazebo.  I’m sitting here watching them rest.  Some of the babies are up on their mom’s back.  The continual sound of cheeping can be heard.  It’s not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

We might not be chicken wranglers, but we sure are chicken lovers.

Oh, and by the way, we had KFC for lunch.  So there’s that.

P.S. The correct pronunciation of “wrangle” is rain-gull, with an extra-long “a” and a drawn-out “u.”

 

Rosie with a few of her penguins chicks!