Life on a farm is never boring to say the least. Life on a farm while raising and homeschooling 6 children is even more exciting. Add to the mix free range chickens that aren't satisfied with 2 acres to roam and scratch in, and life becomes even more interesting!
Who doesn't love farm fresh eggs from happy healthy chickens who have all the room to roam that they need? And who could resist throwing in a picture of the cutest little egg gathering farm hands ever?!
Recently I achieved a tiny little victory that to some may seem, well...insignificant, but to me it was like conquering Mt Everest. Let me explain....We've worked hard to create a self - sustainable life and part of that is raising free-range chickens. That really may not seem like a big deal but free-range chickens become very smart and they become very attached to the humans that care for them. If they can hang out with you....they're gonna! (I know that's not proper English but hey, I'm from Arkansaw!)
Our chickens have had unlimited access to literally hundreds of acres to forage for food and do you know where they camped out?! Our carport! Our front door has glass that comes all the way down and they would come right up to it and just watch us. While they were watching us, no doubt waiting for us to exit the door with the scrap bucket in tow, they would poop! Right there! On the concrete right outside our front door! SERIOUSLY????!!!!!!! (Thank you Sheba for keeping the hens chased off...NOT!)
And not only that but then they had the nerve to roost on my children's play equipment! Too many times have I said, "no baby you can't play on that. The chickens are roosting there and it's all poopy" :-/
Oh but the determination has hit me to conquer this giant in my land! So I went to Walmart and purchased a $20 fish dip net and came home with a mission....to catch every single chicken and clip her wings and put her in the pen for good! Now mind you some of these hens had never been caught and were quite wild and very fast. I took 4 of my 6 children and we headed out to get the job done! Dear chickie on this side of the fence....your days of freedom are over!
In hindsight I honestly wish I had filmed the whole thing because I'm sure it was quite hysterical. I have considered doing a full reenactment just to film it all. The first 5 minutes were terribly frustrating but I put my happy pants on and determined to have a good time. We chased and trimmed and laughed and chased some more...and we got all 50 something chickens (including the rooster) trimmed and locked up. There were 2 that somehow managed to fly over the fence but we promptly caught them again and trimmed the other wing.
Right after all the birds were secure in their pen we set out to clean off both the front and back porch. For the first time in years there is NO POO ON THE CARPORT! It's been over a week now and not one bird escaped...until today. One child (who shall remain un-named) walked out of the gate with an arm load of eggs (should have taken a bucket)... (am going to purchase a lovely little, um...not so little egg basket designated specifically for gathering eggs and will severely punish anyone who takes said basket to use it in their play!) and couldn't lock the gate but forgot to go back out and lock the gate and WHAAAAT!!!!!!! Chickens roaming everywhere! You see I had gone on a walk with my sweetheart....checking hay and all the critters big and small and came back to the gate wide open and chickens on the loose! Wonderful....
Fortunately for un-named child, we were able to wrangle every single loose bird without any poo landing on the carport! Really...don't judge. Life on a farm has brought about so many changes in my life, changes that would never have come any other way....and this, my friends, is part of life...my wonderful, beautiful, exciting, no poo on the carport life on a farm!
Now have I ever told you about the time my hubby and I spent 6 hours one day chasing loose cows all over our neighborhood? Well...that's another story!
***UPDATE: As of now, Dec. 24, 2014, only 1 more chicken escaped. We quickly caught her with that awesome dip net, clipped her other wing and set her back in the pen. The little chickies have discovered they can go in and out of the wire...but soon they will be too big for that and they will have their wings clipped as well!!!!
***UPDATE #2: Guess what??!! The little chickies have now discovered the carport....back to poo on the carport...lovely!
And folks say farm life is dull...
