tOuGH LoVE



Henny Penny, Chicken Little, Cajun Chicken, Scratchy & Pecker; our new chickens had been testing the limits of their new found freedom for a little over a week since we brought them back to the orchard from the Field Days in Fielding in a large box.

Everyday they ventured just a little bit further than the day before, and every afternoon they would require more coaxing to get back into the coop next to the wood shed.

Justin came home to find 'the girls' in the driveway clucking around as though they owned the place. That evening they were very hard indeed to get back in the coop. Justin and I both armed with long thin sticks meant for herding and redirecting way-ward and flighty chooks with attitude problems; spent more than half an hour to get them back in to their beautiful chicken coop.

The next evening I had to go to work. I tried on two occasions leading up to my departure to get them in to the coop without success. Both the lambs and Roger the cat also worked tirelessly to make my job even harder. It became a circus and I eventually had to give up and thankfully go to work. Justin managed to get them in...but much later and after a lot of work.

The next day, Justin and I were home together in the evening; we had a quick briefing before we embarked on our mission into the orchard with our sticks.
This time we couldn't, no matter what we did (including hitting the chickens with our outstretched sticks as they sped past us for the umptenth time in the opposite direction to the coop) ... GET THEM IN!!!!
So we left them out. It was dark by this time and we were exhausted and the chickens had already begun roosting themselves in the low branches of a near by tree. We walked.

*This is a re-enactment photo - it really was pitch black by the time we went in.

Inside our cosy safe haven we mused about the free-lancing chickens, living dangerously and on the edge, out in the wilderness for all prey to feast. Would they be alright? We didn't care. Well maybe just a little, but not enough to go back out and find out. Our biggest concern was our future egg harvesting; the investment plan that was supposed to solve our financial problems and our bacon and egg-less breakfasts.
I left for work too early to mention, and consequently in the dark (and an hour before I had too - Thanks NZ for the heads up on your day-light saving schedule - where were you on that one?), and so Justin rang me later in the morning at work to let me know that all the girls were safe and sound. Whew!
When I got home, sadly yet again in the dark (being a Midwife is seriously not fun at times) - I of course could not wait to find out if Justin had got 'the girls' to go in the coop or not...I expected him to say 'No'.
Well.....apparently when Justin went up into the orchard the chickens were nowhere to be seen. Not under the trees, not near the calf shed, not around the water trough.

Justin found all the chickens already in the hootchie (as he likes to call it), already nestled in and with no intention of spending the night out in the cold and open orchard again.

The moral is.....Tough Love. It works people. Even on chickens. 

  

   

 The End.