friday, september 17, 2010.
joshua asked, on his way out the door this morning, if i could clean out the chicken's dry food container. the sprinklers had gone off last night and turned it to mush. I THOUGHT, NO PROBLEM. i lowered the hatch door and took out the feeder, inspected it and discovered i'd have to disassemble it, dump the old stuff out and clean the trey. EASY ENOUGH. i spread the old food out all over the yard, took the trey over to the the hose that was watering the grapefruit tree and rinsed it. then i thought i should get a towel to dry it. so, i went inside, grabbed the towel and as i opened the back door and stepped onto the porch...THIS IS WHAT I SAW!!! i ran and got my camera. THE GIRLS ESCAPED! i totally FORGOT TO CLOSE THE COOP door after i took the feeder out. we've had the chickens for 6 days. we weren't going to let them out until we clipped their wings, for fear they'd fly away. we've been watching all kinds of youtube videos and reading articles online on how to do it and were planning on attempting to do it with in the next week.
this is where they were when i first came out!
looking for bugs.
they went everywhere together.
hmm...what's over here?
i quickly grabbed my phone from inside and decided to sit outside in the shade and do some ninernet surfing. i looked up and read about how high chickens could fly. ha. i figured the girlies were pretty happy to finally not be "cooped up", as they say, and since they were already out i thought i should give them some more time to explore and get some exercise. AND IN ALL HONESTY, i think i was stalling for time. i was a little very nervous about having to pick chickens up for the first time all by myself. however, it was fun to just watch them walk around together, exploring their new surroundings...that is until they TOTALLY STARTED FIGHTING!!! all of a sudden they were bawking and pecking at each other, ruffling their feathers. AND THEN I SAW IT! they raised their heads high and were each pulling hard at what looked like a worm!!! and then it snapped. i realized as i got closer that it was not a worm, but in fact, a "silly bandz" bracelet. it was pale pinkish and wormy shaped, so they thought they were fighting over a yummy treat. I FREAKED! knew i had to get it away form "the winner" before she swallowed it, but i was afraid i was going to get pecked. i grabbed the towel that i used to dry the feeder and thought i'd just lay it on top of the chicken, that way she couldn't fly out of my arms if i didn't hold her correctly. what ended up happening is i just followed them both around the yard holding my towel out like a matador. at one point, the one with the "worm" flapped her wings in an attempt to fly and bonked herself on the handle of the garden cart near our citrus trees. it looked pretty painful. they both walked all the way over to the swing set. as i was trying to get close enough to get the bracelet out of the ones mouth i noticed the other had just GONE IN THE COOP ALL BY HERSELF. them when i looked back at the one i was trying to help, the bracelet was gone! i don't think she could have swallowed it that fast, but i couldn't find it on the ground below her either. anyway, she just went right into the coop too!!! i couldn't believe it. i latched the door and felt total relief:)
what a CRAZY MORNING!
i'm so glad the boys were at the block's today or i think things would have been a little more chaotic.
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