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Chinggis Makes His Move
Chinggis is my (by this time) rather elderly rooster, he who once was lost (as have been a startling number of others in my life) and was one of two whom I tripped over on a walk down the road, on a day towards the end of January 2021. His lucky day.
After a frantic call for assistance to one of my neighbors, who came down and helped me corral Chinggis and his friend so that I could take them home and make them comfy, I started to think about what to do next, and to contemplate the future.
Chinggis–as I later named him–and his hen-partner were freezing, starving, and parts of them (including Chingiss’s rooster comb) had frozen and snapped off. The hen, who was in much worse shape, didn’t survive, but he did, and he thrived, incentivizing me to build the chicken coop over the next few months so that I’d have a place to put him rather than in the crate in the garage. I began with only the best of intentions–“Do it as cheaply as possible, use what you have, don’t go overboard, etc,” but as time went on I found I was having so much fun that I decided to go a bit over the top. (The prime example of “over the top,” was probably when I decided to put the same red tin roof on the chicken coop as appears on the house and barn.) What can I say? This was the result of it all:
I then started to look around for some female companionship for the poor guy, and a neighbor and my local veterinarian came through, each donating two hens they considered somewhat “past it” in the egg-laying department. Sadly, and after slightly more than two years of loyal production (I estimate about 50o eggs in all on her part), one of them expired this morning. So I now have three hens in their golden years, and I still regularly enjoy two, and sometimes three, eggs a day from them. Good girls!
But it’s never been about factory egg production for me. I just like having the chickens around, and the farm-fresh eggs, and the chickens’ abilities as kitchen vegetable-waste composting units is an added benefit.
Last year, I built a small chicken run behind the coop, so that I could let them out for some exercise and scratching-in-the-dirt fun. (If it were up to me, I’d free-range them, but we have a significant avian predator population out here, and small creatures (even lambs) are regularly “pinched” by the overhead drones on patrol. So my run–which is about six feet behind the coop is fully enclosed and covered):
They’re very fond of it, and enjoy the several roosts, the dirt, the insects, and the occasional provided toys (the hanging “cabbage piñata” is always a great hit, in every sense of the word).
So for a couple of months last year, and until a few weeks ago this year, I picked them all up out of the coop, one at a time, carried them around the corner, and put them in the run. A bit of a chore, but there it is.
This Spring, I decided I’d make a walkway between the two, so that I could just open a trapdoor in the coop and they could make their own way into the run. Here’s the trapdoor:
Predator-proof (around here, this usually means raccoon-proof) in that any clever little buggers trying to intrude would have to press, lift, twist, and turn, two different locking mechanisms to get in.
And about a week ago, I completed the walkway. It’s three-and-a-half feet wide, slightly less than six feet long, and — on its shortest end — about five-and-a-half feet high.
Everything works as advertised. I open the walkway door, step inside, lower the trapdoor on the coop, and the chickens march into the run.
But here’s where I went wrong:
I reckoned without Chinggis.
I believed the accounts that chickens aren’t great flyers. That they’re not all that determined. That, if they want to get above about four feet from the ground, they have to have the space to take a giant run at it. And that, if they don’t have that much room, they probably won’t be able to escape over the wall or over the fence.
I’d done the walkway math: Three-and-a-half feet wide. Slightly less than six feet long. Five-and-a-half feet high (on the shorter end). Not exactly a runway sufficient for a jumbo jet, let alone an awkward and generally flightless chicken.
So I thought the walkway was safe, and I didn’t put a “lid” on it.
This morning, I let the chickens out of the coop as usual, and then took the poor expired girl and buried her. I then went about the business of the garden and the farm.
Some hours later, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the dogs for a while. So I checked their GPS locators, which informed me that they were on the property somewhere. Reassuring/not reassuring, since I still couldn’t find them.
Eventually, Xuxa responded to my insistent calls, and indicated that she’d give up the location of her partner-in-crime, if only I’d just follow her. So I did.
And I found Odo struggling to fit himself into about a three-inch-high opening beneath one of the utility shelves in the tractor shed, determined and insistent. It was something of a ordeal to pull him away, but I managed it, and closed the garage doors on the shed so he couldn’t get back in. (At that time, I assumed he was chasing a bird who’d fallen out of one of the nests in the rafters, and I continued about my business.)
But. No.
Yet another couple of hours later, I went up to feed the chickens, along the way inspecting the coop, the nest boxes, and the run.
No Chinggis in or on any of those things.
Suddenly, the penny dropped. (You might have figured it out already, but sometimes, it takes me a while.)
Down to the tractor shed (carrying an empty feed sack just in case). Open one of the garage doors. Turn the light on. Clamber over various tractor implements into the vicinity of the same utility shelf base that had so captured Odo’s interest. Get down on hands and knees, among the dirt, the oil, and the uncomfortable and thrusting parts of sundry farm implements. Squint into the darkness.
Ah! There he is, flattened into the three-inch-high space. A Chinggis pizza! Or at least, a Chinggis ciabbatta! Still–like Prince Harry–angry and embittered. And–also like Prince Harry–unwilling to listen, or to be rescued or helped.
Nevertheless, I drag him out, first by a wing, then by a leg. Stuff him into the feed sack (much squawking). Carry him back up to the coop. Put him in it. Put the rest of them in it. Close the trap door so they’re stuck inside for now.
Tomorrow (or whenever I feel like it), I’ll put some plastic netting over the top of the walkway so he can’t do this again. In the meantime, he’s safe. They’re safe, I’m content, and life–out here on the farm–is good.
Good tale, well told!
Thanks. Every word is true.
That’s a very handsome coop and run. (And, as usual, an interesting tale.) Did you bury the fence several inches to discourage predators?
Thanks. Yes. I’m comfortable that the coop itself is predator-proof. The fence under the run is 1/2″ hardware cloth, known in these parts as “ratwahr” buried several inches deep. It should be pretty safe, but I have never intended to do otherwise than to lock the chickens back in the coop at night.
Gosh, woman, you scared me to death! I thought Chinggis was a goner! My poor heart!! Well, at least you found him. Serves you right for underestimating his adventurous spirit!
Couldn’t resist the little rant. I’m glad everyone, except your one dearly departed hen, is okay. The dogs, too.
You’re an inspiration! I get exhausted just gardening in suburbia. Maybe it’s some excuse that I live adjacent to a jungle that is constantly trying to reclaim our plot of land for itself, but I couldn’t manage chasing chickens and maintaining a whole farm, too!
I have much less fond memories of chickens. I found them to be a fowl so foul that I have been happy over the last 40 years to have never had any relationship other than of someone that enjoys them fried, baked, barbequed, or made into a soup…but it was a wonderful story.
Thanks.
I haven’t formed even the sort of relationships with the chickens as I have with sheep (haven’t eaten lamb for decades, both because I’m leery of eating someone I know, and also because of the things I’ve seen, medically, over the years). But I still enjoy chicken in all the forms you mention.
However, just having a few of them around has been enjoyable and–so far at least–not too traumatic.
Little creeps. They are far too smart for their own good But the babies are super-cute:
I must have taken this 25+ years ago, with the first digital camera I ever had, a 1MP Olympus D320L. I’d been wondering for some time why it was that my bird feeder kept emptying much faster than the birds could possibly have consumed the contents….
I guess that I’m usually more amused than I am annoyed.
Usually.
Usually, it’s not racoons under the hood of my car/UTV/tractor. It’s mice. My level of amusement vis-a-vis annoyance, in any of the forgoing circumstances is generally in inverse proportion to the importance of the job I’m trying to do when I discover their depredations in the matter.
It’s a rare thing that can’t be fixed, when there aren’t too many electronics involved. Thankfully, and in anticipation of what seems like the inevitable, I’ve become much more proactive over the years.
We have been having our own chicken adventure since MrsB purchased some chicks to take to our Amish friends. A school teacher had them in the classroom for educational purposes and with the ending of the school year needed to get rid of them. These pictures were taken in our living room (Yes, that’s right) when we first got them. They are now in a temporary chicken corral in the back yard having survived two nights with temperatures in the 40s.
I suspect that MrsB is a kindred spirit @she
LOL. The lamb in the living room:
By the time she was this size, though, I had moved her into the barn. She’s never quite recovered, and if the chance ever presents itself, she bolts up the porch steps and back into the house:
Good luck with the chickens.
Overboard is an understatement! You built a paradise for them. 🤣
These chickens are living the high life!
Glad you found them safe and sound.
Brilliant. A real Cluckingham Palace.
A B’Gock Mahal
Birdsailles
😂😂😂
This, and subsequent comments, got me thinking, so I’ve been looking at royal palaces around the world for inspiration. I’m very taken by the Royal Palace in Pnom Penh, Cambodia:
Something to aspire to, in terms of future housing for Gallus Gallus Domesticus.
All those steps would make a proper chicken run complicated.