burnt toast life

Massacre at Harding Farm

Based on the title, and because I’m not the most adept at suspenseful openers, I’m just going to say it: the chickens were murdered. Well, not all of them. Just three of them. That leaves one confused, lonely hen that we found wandering the driveway in a state of shock (not sure if chickens can register shock, but if they can, that’s what she was).

We went on vacation last week and of course it was relaxing. However, I realized something about myself. While I did not face work stress or home stress or regular daily stress, I managed to create vacation stress. Rather than just live and let live, I found myself worrying about who was doing what and at what time, when I should be ready by, how long I should stay at the beach, whether I should pack a turkey sandwich or peanut butter and fluff, etc. You know – big decisions. It’s not that my problems were monumental, it’s just that my poor brain doesn’t know how to function without at least a modicum of anxiety. In the absence of actual drama, I somehow manufacture faux drama.

One thing that was actually worth worrying about came in the form of text around mid-week. I had a friend checking in on the animals at home (cat, turtle, fish, chickens), and she found an ominous pile of feathers in the front yard, which she reported to me with a sad face emoticon. She said that she did not see any chickens wandering about.

We got home and immediately set off looking for our flock. It didn’t take long to discover the aforementioned feathers in the front yard… and then the second pile near the neighbor’s yard… and also the third pile near a pine tree. A quick stop at the neighbor’s confirmed that nary a rooster crow had been heard since Tuesday (it was then Friday). Dismayed, we walked up and down the driveway until we found our lone surviving hen, who turned her head at us inquisitively as if to ask, “Where were you? Where were you while my family was being murdered?” Eric quickly gathered her up into the coop and locked it up tightly. The giant food and water feeders we purchased recently take up half the floor space of the coop, serving as a cruel reminder to all that we had and all that we lost.

all that remains

Obviously, free ranging has its limitations. Eric tried to make me feel better by justifying that this would have happened even if we had been home since we weren’t corralling them at night, but I would imagine that we would have noticed they were being plucked off one by one and locked them up sooner. Really, we should have kept them in the coop full time once the first hen went missing weeks ago. But we loved seeing them strutting around the yard, hiding in the front bushes, perching on the wood pile out back, and creating a little haven in the dry creek bed beside the driveway. The neighbors also enjoyed them immensely, saying it warmed their hearts when they found chickens wandering around their backyard.

Silver linings: we still have one hen. The three roosters that we gave away to the farm are still living (hopefully). And the ones that we lost had very good, albeit short, chicken lives. They roamed freely, eating bugs and ruling the yard. They were not restricted to the tiny cages of giant eggs factories. If it were me, I would prefer a short and free life to a long and imprisoned one. However, these could all just be justifications of a woefully inept caregiver.

The next steps involve finding a chicken friend for Diana Ross (Get it? She will survive?) [EDIT: Diana Ross DID NOT, I repeat DID NOT sing “I Will Survive.” Shame on the writer for not doing her research. The hen’s name shall be Gloria.] and then starting the whole process over again in the spring, if my uncle allows it. Maybe I shouldn’t tell him this little tale. To my lost chickens, I will just say this: I’m sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.

Naughty Bird & the stinky chickens

If I ever start a band, that’s what I’m naming it.

This week was interesting, to say the least. It culminated with me on my hands and knees last night, furiously scrubbing chicken shit off my dining room walls and cursing the chicken coop man who refuses to return phone calls.

Here’s what happened: the chicks got too big for their cardboard box, and around that same time Eric stopped cleaning out their cardboard box. This resulted in a filthy, smelly, chicken filled cardboard box caked in excrement on my dining room table. Not cool. Last garbage day I made the decision that I could not, under any circumstances, continue life for one more day with that pit of despair contaminating the air of my home. The box got tossed, but the chickens remained. I had to find a quick solution.

I should also mention that I found someone on craigslist who sells beautiful, hand-constructed chicken coops for $250. This is a fantastic bargain considering Green Acres wants $700+ and the materials to build one would probably cost $200 alone (not to mention the manual labor, time spent, and so on). The dude answered the first time I called but hasn’t since. Hence, the homeless chickens were relocated to the dog crate.

The problem with that solution, of course, was that we no longer had a functioning dog crate. So at first we let Bird run free, a privilege that Ryder earned a few weeks ago. He thanked us by peeing on the bed (daily), chewing my glasses beyond recognition, eating one of Eric’s expensive tools, and eventually pooping on the bed. Clearly this was a bad plan.

Someone had suggested that we close him in the bathroom instead. This turned out to be a worse idea.

The yellowing linoleum that came with the house, while ugly, was perfectly functional. Now we have half a floor missing, which looks quite ghetto if you ask me. Bird also managed to chew through 2 bath towels, 3 rolls of toilet paper, and a very soft and comfortable bath mat that we got as a wedding gift. He was just about to start work on my bathrobe when we got home.

As angry as we were at Bird, this whole fiasco did force us to take action – quickly. Eric found someone else on craigslist with a smaller, “transitional” coop for just $35. We spent last night cleaning out the layer of solidified bird droppings that had formed in the bottom of the dog crate in the space of just a week. It was a grand time. The mess in my dining room was epic, but now it’s cleaned up and smells pretty and the chickens are outside! Yay! They love their new home and I love that because of a naughty Bird, the stinky chickens are officially where they belong.

finally, a home

Chickenworld: the opposite of China

This is a sad post. All other burnt toast sympathizers should abandon it now.

Still with me? I warned you. Ok, here goes.

In our attempt to create what can only be classified as the Harding Family Farm, we adopted 8 chicks. In fact, I’ve been meaning to write about them for quite some time, but then they got really ugly. When we first got them they looked like this:

"I'm so cute!"

Now they look like this:

"I'm pretty awkward."

We had toyed around with the idea of getting chickens for two reasons. First, the notion of having fresh eggs was appealing. Second, it sounded cool. Now, Eric was definitely the instigator behind this whole plan. If I’m being completely honest it was one of those ideas that I hoped would go away and never come back. It’s not that I didn’t want chickens – it’s just that I assumed (correctly) that they would be more of a hassle than we were bargaining for and we were probably romanticizing the notion of owning them.

Then my uncle sent an email saying that his children had embarked on a 4H project hatching chicks from eggs. At the end of it they planned to donate the chicks to a farm. Unfortunately or fortunately for me, they wound up coming home with us this past Easter Sunday.

Obviously we didn’t know the genders, though we crossed our fingers for 7 girls and 1 boy. Sadly, the odds were against us. As the weeks passed it became clear that we had 4 girls and 4 boys. Not the worst outcome, but not what we were hoping for either. And unlike China, the boys are next to impossible to get rid of.

No one wants male chickens. All you need is one. If you keep more than one, they will fight to the death (so I’ve been told). So what do you do with them? I can’t figure it out. I called a family friend with a farm who sounded delighted that I wanted to give away chickens until I mentioned the gender. “Well, I don’t want males. I need layers,” he explained. So what the hell do people do with the men?!

There are different types of chickens and the kind we have are meant for egg-laying, not for eating. Apparently they aren’t tasty and tender. So now I’m stuck with 3 male chickens who no one wants and who will fight each other into a bloodbath of rooster carnage in a few short months. I’m really at a loss here. Plus, I feel so terrible for them that I can’t even go into the dining room where their cardboard box resides. It’s totally out of sight and partially out of mind on this one.

So my question is this – does anyone want 3 awkward-looking and not delicious male chickens? Free delivery.