A curious name for this week’s blog, I know. Hang on: I’ll get to the story.
We’ve had backyard chickens for years. We first got them when the boys were still living at home. Taking care of pets is a great way to learn responsibility. After the kids left and the last chicken died, we were chicken-less, for a time; all our chicks had flown the coop (sorry, couldn’t resist the easy pun).
Benefits of Chickens
Like the WWII Victory Gardens my mother used to tell me about, this USDA poster from WWI touted the benefits of backyard chickens and even went so far as to declare it your patriotic duty, saying, “Uncle Sam Expects You To Keep Hens and Raise Chickens.”
Besides the fresh eggs, food sustainability, and being fun to watch, chickens eat bugs, have fertile poop, and make great garbage disposals.
Renewable Resources
As conscientious consumers, Grady and I tried composting our food waste, but found it gross and unfulfilling. You won’t believe how much waste and time it takes to get a yard of compost. It was this recycling of our food waste that caused us to rethink and refurbish our chicken coop and buy another brood of girls.
Now, when cooking (or cleaning the fridge), there is always a bowl nearby for collecting our unusable produce. We later dump this medley of food waste over the chicken’s fencing and watch as the hens happily decimate the scraps. One man’s waste is another hen’s treasure. (Oops, I did it again).
The Massacre
In preparation for last weekend’s busy “Baby Wedding” events, husband Grady restocked our chicken’s food and water containers. His thinking was to give the hens enough supplies to last them, unattended, for the next few days. The misfortune occurred when he closed the gate of the chicken’s fence but forgot to close the door of the coop.
For the next three days, we partied with family members, never thinking about the hens. Come Monday, when I went to gather eggs, I found the coop door open, exposing the brood of hens to night hunters like possums, raccoons, or foxes (everything likes eating chicken). During the weekend massacre, one girl was half eaten, one missing, and two were left in distress. By the next day, another had mysteriously died. Now, down to one very nervous bird, I called son Matt and asked if he would take the lonely lady and add her to his home brood.
Lonely Lady Gets a Name
Saturday, Matt picked her up and, in the front seat of his car, transported the domesticated bird to his house, naming her “Twyla” on the way. Twyla now has a new home, new friends, and new respect. As my son-in-law said about her, she is “Raccoon Tested, McCoy Tough.”
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