Drama at the Hen House

*Phrase of the Day: "stupid.piece.of.crap!"

Today should have started off like any other day... Wake up, get Cory's lunch ready, say goodbye, do some dishes, turn on the news and browse the web while I eat breakfast, take a shower.... and finally around 9AM, go feed the chickens. That would be a pretty normal morning for me... and I like my routine.

Today, however... things went askew early on.

I accidentally knocked something off of my nightstand at 5AM, waking Cory and resulting in a successful search for dropped item. When Cory was leaving for work, he didn't stick to our routine and backed almost fully out of the driveway before realizing he didn't wave to me in the window (we're corny, I know... however he did pull back up once he realized and we did get to wave!). I also dropped a clean armful of laundry on the steps. The steps that I haven't swept in over a week... Grr.

THEN.... came the chickens.

I went up to feed them like any normal day, gather eggs, give them water. The weather has been getting nicer, so it's a little less of a hassle than in 10 degree weather, trudging through the snow (although by afternoon, it's pretty much a muddy mess... which is not so nice). Anyway... I noticed that there were 2 chickens in one nesting box. I reached in to grab a couple of eggs and decided that I would open the door to the nesting boxes to see if there was an egg being pecked at by the 2 said chickens. (They were being a little pesky, so I knew something was up). The second I opened the door, one bald chicken popped her head out! *gasp!!!* I was NOT expecting a bald chicken!! I quickly realized that this chicken (who I'll now refer to as SISSY) was being picked on by the other chicken (aka: MONSTER). Being pretty new to the chicken scene, I wasn't quite sure what to do. I knew that I needed to get Monster away from Sissy... but I wasn't 100% certain what the best course of action would be. I went to the house and called my mom... who informed me that Sissy definitely must be separated from the others (although Monster seems to be the only one interested in Sissy's demise). *sigh* The immediate option is to close the coop door and keep Sissy inside and the other girls out. Well, the genius that I am... asked my Father In Law, at the time of coop construction, to fashion the door so as it could also be the ramp for the girls to use to get inside. HA! What a nightmare that idea has been!! Made sense at the time, at least to me... however, NOW in lieu of the pending problem, I realize that the coop door won't shut due to the build up of chicken crap at the hinges. Not fun. I found a chisel, thanks to Cory's directions... meanwhile I am NOT happy about any of this.... and I go up to the coop to chisel out the pooh.
(Picture is from July when our chickens were still wee babes and the coop was recently constructed. You can see the gap at the top of the ramp... which this morning was a mound of crap!).

This chiseling activity resulted in confused chickens, crap flying in my face and hair, stepping in crap... and my many mumbles and grumbles about the whole thing. Meanwhile, Monster will NOT leave Sissy alone! Anywhere Sissy goes, Monster is sure to follow. So irritating!

Finally I got the crap chiseled out so that the door would JUST shut... *phew*. However, then I spent another 20 minutes trying to get Monster out of the coop! About the time I would get her out, Sissy would slip out... or some other stupid clucker would slip in! I just could NOT get them all separated! And Sissy, being the sissy chicken that she is... would not just run to safety! This resulted in my many uses of the Phrase of the Day (*see above). The neighbors probably think I'm a kook... running around the coop and in the run, uttering mean things to those chickens.

I finally took a piece of wood and was able to use it swoosh Sissy into the coop (though Monster wasn't far behind!)... and got the door latched... although Sissy seemed pretty distraught.... and the other chickens did NOT like that the door was closed!

I had to come back to the house and take another shower (just couldn't shake the icky feeling of having chicken pooh ricochet off of my face... and more than likely... sticking in my hair).

Later on, we are going to do a chicken exchange with my mom. She is going to take Sissy to hole up in her barn to heal... while we get one of her healthy chickens.

Who knew chickens could cause so much drama? Although it has just added to an already weird day.

On the bright side, when I put on a clean pair of jeans after shower #2... I found $8 in the pocket! WOOT!