Chicken & Dumplings

I thought I might never make it back here.  I have ten entries cooked up in my head and have spent the last week everywhere but home with a computer.  Alas, I have returned. 

Also, this is so not a chicken blog. 

Mama say Whaaaaaa?

They grew very quickly-- even just one week into their little lives, losing their fluff and beginning to grow feathers on their tails and wings. 

And they pooped. 

These chickens pooped more than any animal I had ever come across in my entire thirty-one years of life.  KJ helped me to clean their brooding box at least three times a day.  Then we fed them more.  And they pooped more.

KJ, Professional Chicken Sitter

At one point I decided to toss some of the chicken feed straight onto the newspaper-covered floor of the brooding box to save the chicks all that effort of eating and digesting and pooping.  But then they became bored and felt their lives to have less purpose.  They began asking for a Wii, and to have stories read to them and multi-colored fleece tie blankets at night, and to attend the free days at the Museum of Science and Industry with us.  I gave up and encouraged them to eat the feed off the floor, and we continued cleaning the stinky box three times a day, at least.

 

We played with them, too.  We tried to give them all the best of childhood experiences.

Okay fine, no one actually punted, but it was funny enough, right?

What up, Karate Chop Action Optimus Prime?

What up, Chick? 

Everybody, hide! 

Our German Shepherd became more and more interested in the chicks, especially once they learned to cheep loudly, and hop.  I would place them in their temporary Chicken Storage Shoebox while cleaning the brooding box, and KJ would watch them closely.  They learned to leap higher and higher until eventually they looked like Chicken Popcorn (or is that popcorn chicken?) flying over the sides of the box and onto the kitchen counter (dangerous territory, chicks...you have no idea.) 

We put our dog outside while we cleaned them, and moved the brooding box to a safe room with a closed door while we slept and while we went places.

KJ hoped to remedy the situation in his own way, to keep that pacing, tail-wagging, chops-licking canine away from his poultry babies. 

Too bad the dog can't read.

I made sure to warn the kids, even before our eggs arrived, that the chicks couldn't stay (and the chick above, mildly grateful for that).  Even so, they tried and tried to convince me to take on the 4H Poultry Project.  They loved their smelly chicks.

But the dog, and city limits, and all that, brought us to say goodbye to the chicks.  A family from 4H came to pick them up, eventually, and she told us where we could find them this year at the County Fair.  The boys were very happy to hear that. 

Not Number One, Two, Three all the way up through Ben Ten will be eaten, that we can foresee (that eleventh egg never did hatch, poor baby.)  We will most definitely do this again next year!  What a fun experience.

Comments

[BetteJo]

.. although a chicken coop in the back yard would have been great for all kinds of posts!

[Jenny]

I so loved the chicken adventures!

I also am amused by the fact that the picture of the 4 of us jumping off the log is right behind the chicken shoebox! Like we're jumping onto the chickens!

[Erica]

You are such a good momma :) my husband broke down and built our chickies a little coop in the garage because the big bad rooster tried to kick their asses at the farm. So now I have two chickens living in my garage in a coop. Hopefully they will not be there much longer. Glad you had fun and I loved all your chicken adventures.