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Monday, August 27, 2012

The Chickens are Coming



What kind of assholes borrow an expensive convertible from a family member, load up five chickens into the backseat and drive five hours home without having a clue how the hell to take care of chickens?  Yeah.  That would be us.

Since the husband is still having to commute to his job three hours away every week, his mom kindly offered to lend him a sweet little convertible she hasn't been driving, so he doesn't single handedly start another war in the Middle East trying to supply his pick up with enough gas to make the long trek. When he got to his mom's, he called,  "My mom is going to give us four of her new chickens and a little rooster."  "Oh," I say.  "That sounds great."

 Really?  That sounded great?  The husband had just gotten back from a business trip to Europe, was stressed out and going to drive a Mini Cooper full of chickens five hours to our house and then try to figure out where the hell we were going to put them.

The husband is one of those guys who takes the bull by the horns.  I applaud him for that, but sometimes the situation is not that well thought out.  I on the other hand tend to think things to death before I make a decision, but every cliche city girl who moves to the country needs to email her doubting city friends photos of herself holding a basket full of fresh eggs surrounded by her beautiful heritage chickens, so I didn't question the impulsivity of this action.

The boys and I were so excited when he pulled up around 6pm with our little egg factories.  The car reeks of chicken shit and there are feathers everywhere, but we quickly decided we would each name one of the chickens since there were five of them and five of us.  When we try to get the roof down to take out the cage, we realize the roof doesn't work.  We will have to take them out one by one and put them into our makeshift chicken coop.  "How do you pick up a chicken?" I ask the husband.  "I don't know. You are the one who was supposed to read the book."  "The book" is this PhD thesis his mother emailed me the night before about how to raise chickens.  I have three crazy boys and at the end of the day, I don't have the time or desire to read a 200 page book about the origins of chickens in North America.  I need a 4 minute youtube video.

I go to the shed and come back wearing huge leather work gloves like I am going to be handling a wild falcon instead of a little chicken.  I grab the feisty one and she goes crazy trying to get away but I manage to get her into her temporary house.  The whole while I am thinking, "How the hell are we going to reach into the nesting boxes to collect eggs every morning with these crazy bitches pecking at us like something out of a Hitchcock film."  I am terrified.  I hate chickens.

Time to go watch some Youtube videos to see how to build a chicken coop.

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