Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Chicken Slave

The grandkids preparing to help catch our chickens at the farm on pickup day.

The ladies inspect their new home.

The flock looks over the park of Chateau Poulet.

The four Rouen ducks. Much cuter than the chickens.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that there haven't been many posts of late. There is a simple explanation that can be summarized in one word - chickens. For the past several weeks I appear to be working full-time for the chickens. And when I say full-time I mean 20 hour days, 7 days a week. We picked the demanding birds up 10 days ago and since then there has been no rest for your hero. First I had to work feverishly to finish the fence around the park of Chateau Poulet, so our new residents could leave the coop without running off. My oldest son was here to help me or else I would still be working on that darn fence. Then there has been a constant back and forth at all hours of the day to feed, water and otherwise tend to the demanding flock. Toss in the 4 ducks who have their own special demands and you can understand why I'm exhausted. To add insult to injury, 10 of the birds we got (the Wyandottes) are pretty scraggly. They were raised in a very small coop and got to picking each other's feathers out. They're the black and white ones in the photo above. The Rhode Island Reds on the other hand are pretty handsome birds. All of these young chickens should start laying any day now. So far however we have seen zero eggs. Nada, zilch, rien, etc. If they don't start laying soon, starvation could well start gnawing at our innards and then the inevitable will inevitably arrive. One of those scraggly Wyandottes will find its way into our oven. Not a pretty thought I admit. But then again neither is starvation. Pray for eggs because I'm not very practiced at butchering chickens.

1 comment:

Martin said...

Kill the chicken on the right. I don't like the way she is looking at me.