Good-Bye For Now

For the last six years we have always had chickens roaming around the farm. We've loved having fresh eggs everyday, enjoyed watching them forage and run around (if you've never seen a chicken run, it's pretty funny), and we've enjoyed hearing the clucks, cackles, and crows (well, not at 5 AM). We've had our share of preditors including rats, opossums, raccoons, and weasels, that have periodically thinned the flock. But no matter how frustrating they were or how many we lost, we always replaced them with new chickens. But the weasel was what finally did me in. After a summer of raccoons (raccoon casualty: 8) and an autumn of weasels (weasel casualty: 6), I just didn't have it in me to get new chickens as they only would have been bait to various preditors. So, this past weekend Art took our last three hens to our friends' farm to live with their flock. Our chickens weren't roosting in the coop (can you blame them? They witnessed the death of five of their sisters in that coop) and because of that we weren't sure where or if they were laying eggs. Plus, they always looked so sad and lonely, just the three of them roosting in the cow pen, bored. They'll be happier with the large flock our friends' have- they'll have friends and they'll have a new place to scratch and forage.

It's the end of an era for us and it makes me a little sad. I have this big idea that I'm going to fix up the chicken coop this summer. The walls have bats of insulation and plastic sheeting over them, but that allows holes for rats and weasels, so my intention is to close it in. I have always let my chickens range freely because I think it makes a happier, healthier chicken, but because of that they are easy prey for raccoons. When we first had chickens we fenced off the area around the chicken coop, but the scratched it dry so it was just a big dirt patch. I haven't decided what I'll do about that (or if I'll do anything about that).

One benefit of not having chickens around is that I no longer have to worry about them foraging in places they shouldn't. Last fall I planted a gazillion bulbs and, by the next day, those damn chickens had dug up every single one so that I had to re-plant them all. When I spread the old hay in my garden I always admire how neat it looks...until the next day when I find that the chickens of gone though and messed it all up. No matter how many times I would go out there to straighten the hay, those damn chickens would mess it up again. I also won't have to worry about them eating bugs off of my tomatoes- which sounds like it would be beneficial, but they actually take a piece of tomato everytime they pick off a bug, so I have chunks of tomato missing from each fruit. Art just added that there won't be chicken poop everywhere, so that's a good thing, too.

Since we've been getting eggs from the same friends who took our chickens, Art and I are sitting on the fence about re-establishing our chicken flock. Perhaps it will be like gardening and I will get a fresh outlook when spring comes along?

I just thought I would share some pictures of the chickens we've had over the years: