“NO MORE CHICKENS” was the catch cry of 2014. Early on, Nathan put his foot down and demanded I disallow any chicken reproduction. I did what all responsible chicken owners do at that point and I culled my roosters.
Only there were a few six week old chickens who weren’t really showing their sex definably yet, so they stayed, and three of them turned into roosters.
“I must catch those roosters.” I thought over and over again, as spring came and the chickens clucked about the paddock, frantically trying to avoid the ever-growing horniness of their rooster overlords. “I really must…”
Nah. It’ll be fine.
Carefully I checked for new nests every few days. There’s only so many places to lay and quietly I followed the chickens around, rooting out their nests, stealing their eggs, limiting their chances at spawning.
Then came the end of school year chaos, and exhaustion, and Christmas, and oh wow, Internet, did you know 21 days can really fly?
I was laying in bed today with a grumpy sick toddler when Nathan stormed into the bedroom. Pointing at me, he glared. “This is your fault!”
I sat up. “What is?”
“TINY FLUFFY BALLS OF USELESSNESS!”
I wasn’t with the program. Chickens had not been at the forefront of my mind for um, about a month now. Whoops.
“CHICKENS! BABY ONES!” He wasn’t doing a very good job of glaring anymore.
The older children skipped in behind him, gleeful.
“MUMMY! We’ve got baby chickens and they are SO CUTE.”
And so we did. A nest I hadn’t known about until a few days ago, all the while thinking “I must take her eggs” has magically, through the power of incubation, spawned three tiny fluffy balls of uselessness.
They’re adorable.
But we didn’t want any more chickens, and three days ago I found two broody hens sharing a nest in the blackberries.
Today, knowing we’d already had one set of oh fuck babies, I steeled myself to the task. I found a bucket and headed off to the blackberries to steal eggs from two angry broody chickens.
I knelt down, carefully pulling one hen off the nest, when the other hen flew at my face.
SQUAWK FLAP BLATHER FLAP SCREECH, I fended her off with my hand, pushing her down and coming away with peck marks all over.
I sat back, thinking, before deftly putting the bucket over the top of the angry hens, trapping them underneath. Perfect. Now I could slide my hand under both chickens and nick their eggs.
Only ….
peep
peeeeep
peeep
The second egg I pulled out had a chicken partially hatched and looking at me.
I put the eggs back, apologised to the chickens and walked back to my husband, egg collecting bucket empty.
I stopped next to him as he looked at me.
“So, hey. Maybe we can do no baby chicks from now onwards?”
I guess we’re beginning the year with another rooster cull.
(Not the current chicks. I haven’t photographed them yet.)
I need chick photos!
And you’d better eat those roosters.
Ooops! (*~*)
But they are chickens. And so adorable. Tell your husband. Tell him …
Yeah, my husband has said when these dogs are gone – Mojo has cancer and will be gone in a couple months, Abe is 8 – no more dogs. They are a pain. I understand his point. These dogs have been tremendously expensive medically (7 surgeries for Abe’s bad knees), they have fought, which freaked me out and makes life complicated….
And yet we are talking about what kind of dog we should get next…a female puppy, either a boxer or a Bernese mountain dog. And the Bernese is my husband’s choice.
Also, hey, Jurassic Park: life will find a way…
Fluffy balls of uselessness! omg your husband is hilarious!
What horrible new rule is this? WTF? “No more chickens”??? Are you high?
I’m glad that Mother Nature has seen fit to show you the error or your ways.
Now… can I get some more peep pics?
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