they'll come home to roost
and if not, there's always the hockey stick treatment
It’s been a few weeks dear reader since the racoon visited our hen house and killed our best layer - Jellybean.
She’s now in a hole next to the tomato plants.
I’m sure by next summer, we’ll be eating some of the nutrients that have come back to the soil from her rotting corpse - as it should be.
Losing a hen created a problem.
No.
It wasn’t an egg issue. We still get plenty - despite the fact they’ve slown down somewhat with the summer’s heat.
No, the issue wasn’t a present day problem but one that would emerge as the nights got longer and the days shorter.
You see, in order to not have to heat our hen house in the winter, we needed the wattage of five hens. Any less than that would require some electricity to keep them warm.
But five hens?
In a very lightly mostly tight coop, they generate enough BTU’s of body heat to survive the winter.
Do they love it?
I dunno. I asked but all the little shit factories did was cluck and bock.
Insulted by their poor English, I haven’t bothered to ask again.
Sadly with Jellybean gone, there were only four hens left.
What to do, eh?
Well dear reader, what would you do?
Some might decide to buy a heating pad and get some long extension cords.
Us?
We went and got another hen.
Well.
We got another hen and a back up hen should we wake up another morning and find one of our flock with its’ neck broken and its intestines spread all over the back yard.
So within a day of Jellybeans’ funeral we had two shiny new pullets in our yard.
One is a red star hen named Mildred.
The other?
She’s a Rhode Island Red named Beaker.
Good names?
I KNOW.
Those names aren’t good.
THEY’RE GREAT!
Beaker in particular is a perfect name for a hen. The reasons?
Obvious.
Anyway, for the first two weeks they were in their own coop, hanging out next to our flock of four.
After two weeks we introduced them to the main enclosure.
It was a nerve wracking experience. Salmon had become the new rooster hen and she was doing a lot of pecking and beating up of the two new girls.
That’s kinda how it goes.
We unleashed our two little feather babies into the bigger world and they were violently introduced to their place in the pecking order.
Sure we love them. And sure we think they’re special.
But it’s a good thing they didn’t act like a dumb young person in an entry level job. They took their pecking and cowered in the corner when things became too much for them
At night?
They’d return to the safety of the old small hutch we used to acclimate them with the rest of the flock.
Though they are cute, they’re really really fucking dumb. Like, so dumb they didn’t know how to roost yet.
For several nights in a row, I’d enter the enclosure with a hockey stick, use the stick to trap them by cupping them gently under the blade. Then, before racoon hour, I’d deftly stuff them into the main chicken house then lock it up tight.
For a while I was worried they wouldn’t figure out where to go to be safe. For a while I was worried that they would’t take their place with the rest of the chickens.
But last night?
Last night something changed.
Those new little birds - daddy’s pride and joy - they followed the old hens into the coop and took their place amongst the straw and turds.
They figured it out!
It was such a relief.
Being a parent is pretty stressful too.
We’ve introduced them to the world, watched as the other birds have asserted dominance over our prized little chicklets.
And hopefully?
One day they’ll find their place. One day they’ll figure out how to make their way home to roost.
Until that time?
It’s a shame I can’t hit them with a hockey stick.
