Chicken Menace

Since I had a dentist appointment yesterday, I dressed up a little - wearing nicer jeans, nicer shirt, and my good sandals. It was the sandals that were most impressive – I am tennis-shoe kind of girl. I’m sure I impressed the art girls who normally see me in my grubby jeans and a T-shirt. Actually, that is my normal attire any day of the week. The chickens were not so impressed when I went out to feed them wearing my fancy pants and shoes. As I was walking around their pen, I wondered at my choice of footwear, but I kept going. As I was hauling water to those thirsty chickens, who had been squawking at me to hurry with their water, I stepped on uneven ground and rolled my ankle. I went down, throwing the chicken water bucket and bending the rim. My first thought was, "Dang! Toby is going to be mad that I bent his chicken water bucket." Then my second thought was, "I hate those dang chickens."

Last week when I was feeding the chickens, there was a dead meadowlark in the pen with the chickens. I don’t know how it got in the chicken condo, but those chickens are deadly. They are territorial and vicious. Years ago, we were stacking small bales of hay in the barn. Toby picked up a bale and a little mouse went running across the next bale. Without thinking, Jesse, who was wearing gloves, snatched up the mouse. It was an amazing catch. She had that look on her face that said, "Wow, I can’t believe I caught the mouse!" The second look on her face was, "And why did I catch it?" She took it over to her chicken pen and dropped it in. The chickens went crazy chasing it. The mouse did get away, but I’m telling you that chickens are mean.

My first experience with chickens was years ago when Bo was a toddler. We had moved to a little farm north of Vernon, TX. My dad bought us 40 odd assortment of chickens, rooster, and guineas. At first it was kind of cool. Then it was a mess. They tore up the backyard leaving it looking like a war zone. They crowed at all hours of the night and day. They had fleas. They attracted varmints like skunks, snakes, and possums. Then they started having chicks and got really mean. Bo was afraid to go into the back yard after having a mother hen chase him and peck his diaper (little fluff was coming out of his diaper as he ran). Bo soon learned to take a handful of rocks to throw at the guineas so that they would go on and quit squawking. I can look back on it now and think that it was not so bad, but still, chickens are not my favorite. And goats are worse. As my neighbor says, "A man can’t walk the Christian walk and own a goat." But that is another story.