07/02/2016
CHICKENS CAN FLY (June 2016)
It all started with our chickens discovering their wings and what they are good for…flying.
A couple of months back two of our three year old Golden Wyandotte hens began to brood. Hens will brood when they want to hatch their eggs and have little baby chicks. Without a rooster the hen’s effort is in vain resulting in bad attitudes and pecking when disturbed. Three to five weeks on the nest with an occasional hop down to eat and drink is not uncommon.
Following the advice offered in the Backyard Chicken site we visited the feed store in Coos Bay where we purchased four week old chicks and packed them in our cat carrier. The Backyard people told us that if we wanted to introduce new chicks into the flock and there were hen’s brooding we could solve both problems at once. We waited until dark when four of our hens were settled on their roosts and the Wyandotte’s were piled on top of each other in the bigger nest box. We hoisted their feathered buts and slipped the baby chicks under both of them. The hens settled down and all was quite.
The next morning two proud hens were strutting around the chicken yard with their peeping chicks in tow. The four other hens came around the check out the new comers only to discover pecks from the new mamas. All was well for hens and chicks.
Weeks have passed and the fuzz balls have become fast mini chickens who slip through the pickets of the sea green fence into our backyard where grass and fresh green garden sprouts grow. The mom’s found the four foot high fence between them and their unprotected chicks unacceptable. They in anguish and as never before spread their wings and flapped their beach ball bodies over the fence. Within hours the backyard and garden were full of fat hens and chicks gobbling up bug and everything green…almost.
I’m handy in my shop and spent the rest of the day fashioning four wood framed screen that when attached on top of the exiting picket fence created a five foot wall between my green stuff and their big dirt patch known as the chicken yard. Proudly I cleaned and stored my tools and kicked back in my Adirondack chair, which is painted the same color as the picket part of the bigger and better fence.
Hardly a sip of my diet Coke, sweetened with Splenda, had passed my lips when one of the mama’s spotted the chicks squeezing through the fence. Her eyes expanded. Without a second thought she spread the wings on her bomber body and rose up…up and over the fence. I tilted my head to the side and took another drink.
