Chicken dramas

Any day with a little bit of sun is called a sunny day, despite the "partly cloudy" and "partly sunny" announcements delivered by weather stations. Today was a sunny day and the chickens came out. They wandered a bit, tearing at dandelion leaves. Then Maewest spotted me, having not noticed that I was the one who opened the gate to the pen or having forgotten. She ran to the tall food dispenser (me).

Muffin saw  and immediately ran to chase her away from me just in case I was indeed carrying food.

Running chicken: a blur of action. Maewest and Bazooka dashed off together.

They went to the edge of the yard and chased each other in circles, which of course I did not capture in a video though it is the absolute truth.

Muffin went off to have a dust bath with Brangelina.

That's what passes for the afternoon soaps when you have chickens.

Miro starts school

It's a busy spring with me at my desk all day between bouts of letting dogs out and putting dogs back in confinement. Alanis and Miro spend most of their outdoor time racing around the yard, playing biteyface and, in Miro's case, getting rolled on the ground. He bites her beard; she holds him down by the neck; when I can't stand it any more, I make them stop.

Checking the new leaves.

Typical biteyface.

The few seconds' delay between pressing the button and the camera and the time it gets around to taking the photo makes it impossible to get good action shots. I know, I need a fancier camera (maybe in a couple of years!).


This plastic bottle with rocks in it was a favorite new toy for a couple of days.

Miro started obedience school last week. In our class there are a Samoyed who squeals constantly, a Newfoundland, a Bernese Mountain dog, a Basenji, a little ball of fluff with a squished-in face, and a JRT cross. Apparently the Samoyed squealing and keening is typical of the breed. We had to move across the room from them so that I could hear the teachers.

Miro already knew "sit" and "down" as well as a bit of walking beside me on the leash, so Day One was a snap. Also a snap were Miro's jaws--he's a typical mouthy, bitey Airedale who wants to keep busy all the time. There are all kinds of ways to teach bite inhibition. The one that worked best was the instructor's holding Miro's muzzle closed until he stopped struggling, then giving LOTS of BIG praise. After that, all he needed was one "uh uh" reminder when he tried biting again. The instructor was very impressed by how quickly he learned.

I want him to learn to have my hand in his mouth while he's gentle with his teeth. We're working on it.

Chicken chase

When chasing an errant chicken, you learn a lot about the neighbors. You don’t meet them all because no one who does not have to be outside at 7:15 on a freezing morning is going to be standing around to greet you.

I began by wasting natural resources driving out my street and down the next one over to the yard where Edsel—also known as “that f**$#@! fowl"-- had spent the night. I had seen her silhouette in the tree but by the time I got to the house, she had disappeared.

I discovered that the dog belonging to that house is huge. That is, the size of the poop is huge and it was all over the yard like land mines. These people should clean up more often. They did have lots of useful junk, including spare wood, bricks I could use to line the fence around the chicken pen to keep vermin out, and a shed that would make a great hen house if they'd just get all the junk out of it. Unfortunately, there were huge piles of debris at the back of the yard that Edsel, once I spotted her, ran up, down, and around while I stumbled after her, trying to catch her in the fishing net I had brought.

Finally she flew to the top of the fence and sat there, impervious to the pebbles I threw at her. I showed admirable self-restraint by not heaving a boulder. Because this yard was several feet lower than mine, the wood fence sat on top of a brick retaining wall that was about hip height. Fortunately there was a reinforcing pole that I used to haul myself up the few extra inches I needed before getting a foot on the wall, not an easy thing to do in clumsy rubber work boots.

When I stood there clinging to the pole, she gave a squawk and flew toward my yard. I jumped down, hoping I wouldn’t sprain anything, dashed to my car, dog poop and all, and drove back to my house. Did I mention that I was dressed for work except for the yard boots?

Since my neighbor on the west side was out scraping ice off his windshield, I explained that I needed to take a look in his back yard in case the chicken had gone there. No chicken but an unused dog kennel about 6x8x6 that could make a really nice chicken run. Maybe they want to get rid of it....

Then the neighbor and I had a little talk about the raccoon I reported on earlier. He said, “We sort of took care of it,” in that low-voiced manner people have when they're describing something not quite legal. I feared he was implying that they had set out poison.

I ran back to my yard and there was Edsel looking bewildered on a short deciduous tree. Pure luck. I bagged her in the net and put her in the hutch with Muffin, who is always easy to catch. Edsel complained about the whole thing. As if she had any right!

Next: Lockdown