LENNY'S HAREM

Chicken Coop

          Yesterday was a sunny, balmy day, almost took off my shirt to catch a few rays, grab a wee bit of a tan, so I let the chickens out while I cleaned their coop, which was really a disgusting mess I have to admit.  However, when the temperature drops below zero for long periods of time, everything freezes, including chicken shit and boy, do those girls crap a lot.  When I opened the door to the coop, to make my job a little easier to clean it out, all the pretty girls just came sashaying through the doorway and strutted their stuff - talk about doing the Can-Can, the old Bardrock rooster was some excited, almost went out of his mind, I tell you, didn't know which one to jump first but then being the horny little guy he is, he simply chose the one closest and then worked his way around - my goodness, could be a lot of wee chicks peepin' about the barnyard come this spring.  It's been awhile since I let them out; the temperatures have been so low, they'd have froze their feathers off.  When they got the hang of the ice and slippery snow, the cluckers were all doing fancy pirouettes and circle eights all over the barnyard; they were just plain having a fine old time - I never heard such happy cluckin'.  Duncan, our dog decided he was being left out and tried to join in but I had to discourage him with a wee bit of a scoldin'; I didn't want those chickens scattered all over the place, could have been a bit of a problem getting them back in the coop once the sun started dipping below the horizon and besides; you'd think they were on vacation by the small amount of eggs they're layin' and I didn't need him unnecessarily upsetting them.  I'm not sure how many of the fine- feathered hens there are, close to 70 I expect, and at only about a dozen eggs a day, they really aren't producing much, just barely paying for their feed.    

        All my pretty girls really enjoyed the clean coop too; a lot of them just stretched out on the floor and gave themselves a dust bath.  I know they prefer flappin' about in a dusty hole in the ground but since that doesn't exist at the moment, they did the best they could with the dry wood chips and sawdust.  I find it a touch odd, that with all those nesting boxes and the girls aren't laying so many eggs these days, I'll be danged; there are sometimes up to three hens in one box trying to lay an egg when all of the other boxes are empty - don't make a lick of sense to me.  I realize they're a gregarious bunch of feathered females but when they're trying to squeeze three of them into a laying box; isn't there a saying that "three's a crowd"?

          Some say that chickens are raptors and originated during the dinosaur era and I can believe it.  One thing about a chicken, they're certainly survivors and better equipped than any other creature I know of.  Can you think of anything else that can lay an egg a day and then dine on that egg - I expect, should the world remain on its present path and things start dying off rapidly, including the human race, why I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see that chickens are at the head of the survival list and on that note - think I'll head on in to the house and have me a plate of scrambled eggs - nothin' better than farm-fresh eggs - cheers, eh!