Chicken Drama

We've had the Girls home a little over a month. A month that has been riddled with drama.


First, they got into my garden, eating my bell peppers and lettuce down to almost nothing.

Then, they got into my garden, eating my cucumbers and radishes down to almost nothing.

All of this was to be expected, of course. Chickens, after all, don't understand the difference between the nasty weeds I want them to eat and the neat rows I don't. Although, after a few days, they started posting a look out and would run like mad when they saw me coming into the garden. So I have to assume they knew very well what they were doing.

Then catastrophe struck. Chad discovered Henrietta. Dead. In the coop. Of unknown causes.

Was it something she ate?

Was it fowl play?

I'm afraid we'll never know.

We observed a moment of silence for the silly bird who couldn't figure out how to get into the nesting box on her own and set about designing a new coop. One that would allow more space and less opportunity for chicken misadventures.

Then, last evening, tragedy almost struck yet again. In the form of an owl.

I went outside in the twilight time between dusk and dark to put the girls away. Slipping on my flip flops, I walked across the deck and down the two steps. With smooth, silent swoop, an owl pounced on Cutie.

In shock and horror, I watched while Miss Clucks flapped her wings in fright. Cutie didn't say a word. I ran around the deck, flapping my arms and yelling. But the owl disappeared as silently as he'd arrived.

I put a distraught Miss Clucks in the coop and walked into the house, traumatized.

Shut up.

I was traumatized.

The next morning, I explained to Joseph what had happened. He was intrigued and horrified and determined we needed new chicks because we're just not able to keep our chickens alive very well.

As I left the house, I got a phone call from Chad.

"I found Cutie."

Cutie was alive, if a little worse for the wear. She ate strawberries, drank water, and staggered around for a bit before joining her sister in the coop.

I had no idea, when I first ventured into the wild world of urban chicken farming, that being a farmer was so rife with drama, danger, and intrigue.

Because we still don't know how Henrietta died.