Our "Chicken Run"

 Here's the garage coop the Chicken's stayed in for about 6 weeks. By the end they were roosting on the edge at night and making quite a mess outside their coop. 

 This is Snow. She was my favorite. 

 This is Roosty the most rooster looking chicken. Doesn't that name totally sound like a name Martin Kratt from Wild Kratts would have given a chicken? Need I say the kids named him?  

This is Teddy (Theodore, as a chick he looked like a chipmunk) the alpha rooster. He doesn't have much of a comb, but from the beginning he has ruled the roost, pun intended. 

 On May 18th Steve and the kids met Tom, Steve's dad, half-way between here and his place. They traded 11 chicks for a chicken coop. Steve's parent's want to replace their hens and the roosters will go to the man who gave us the eggs. We kept four chickens, three hens (Snow, Nugget and Allie) and one rooster (Roosty).  The idea was the we would keep the three hens and give the rooster to our friend, Doctor Huie.

Steve and the kids built the coop together. Peter really enjoyed the process and wrote all about it in his school journal. He also willingly put the chickens in their coop each night and let them out in the morning. Having the chickens taught him great responsibility.

The chickens liked their coop, but would often fly out of their enclosure during the day. One day I noticed they were gone when I got home from grocery shopping. That's when I learned how to herd chickens myself. If only you could have seen my squawking, what a sight! I based my technique on what I saw my nephew Brody do with my in-laws chickens over Christmas break. Anyways, they also flew into my garden a few times, which I couldn't allow because they would tare my plants up and I love my plants. When Thomas went into the garden after them that was the last straw. Steve clipped their wings that night hoping they would stay within their enclosure from then on.  They didn't. Some how they got out and would wander into the woods. They loved going through the leaves. They were probably finding bugs.  So we decided to move their coop to behind the garage where there's more dirt and leaves.

 The next morning (May 29th) Peter and I both went outside to let the chickens out. When I turned the corner and saw the coop was open I knew something was wrong.  There was one lone chicken in the coop, Nugget. White feathers were around the enclosure, evidence that Snow was gone. She was always the easiest to catch. Allie we found headless at the bottom of the hill and Roosty we never found evidence from. We think it was a fox that got them. The locks were only slide latches, which an animal could easily swat open. It was sad, but the kids took it well and learned a lot during the whole experience.

Nugget stayed one more night at our house in the garage before we took her up to Tom and Melinda's.  She rode in a box in the back seat with Joseph while I drove. She was quiet until joseph started crying during the last hour of our three and a half hour drive. 

Steve felt that since he promised the Huie's a rooster he'd bring them back one from the 11 chickens we'd given his parents. He bought back Alvin. He wasn't as easy a passenger as Nugget. Luckily, Steve drove back on his own because Alvin escaped the from the box, twice! Steve gave up after the second escape. Once out he just roosted on the the side of the box for an hour. Then he flew up to Steve's head rest. Where he proceeded to preen Steve. Apparently Steve's hair tickled Teddy's nose because  he would sneeze on Steve occasionally. Then Steve came to a quick stop and Alvin fell down to the arm rest, where he stayed curled up under Steve's arm for the rest of the ride.