The first time I came to the farm there were chickens and guineas and ducks and geese and turkeys all over the place. They had the run of the place. The family ate everything but the chicken eggs. They sold those. But it seemed as though those critters were all under foot.
At some point in time Jimmy decided that we needed chickens. He wanted to have fresh eggs. And so he got us chickens. I think he brought them home from trade day one day and he let them run free. I think he fed them in one of the stalls in the barn. So they hung out in the barn in the middle of the night but roamed the farm during the day. They ate whatever they could scratch up in the yard, in the fields or even in the driveway. I’m sure they ate anything and everything, including rocks. But we got four or five eggs each day. And we could have eggs whenever we wanted.
One thing about having chickens is that sometimes you want to have a rooster. Mind you, it’s not required but there are those who believe that a hen will not lay eggs consistently without a rooster around. So, we had a rooster. He was a busy little thing. And he acted like he ruled the roost. Of course, we knew that he didn’t. We knew that those hens were the ones who were in charge. We knew all of that. But that cock acted like he was in charge.
Remember that I was not raised in the country. I’ve never really been around any animals other than a pet dog. I did not know how chickens would act. I stayed away from them most of the time but sometimes they would just be there, under foot and in my way. I had a term of endearment for them, I used to call them “asshole chickens”. But I should have hollered “asshole rooster”. I think I called him “stupid rooster”. He would watch me and if given an opportunity he was going to be in my way.
One weekend Jimmy asked if I would like to go out to the barn to put some gear on the baby colts. He wanted to put a halter on them and knew that he would need some help. I don’t know why he asked me, I’m not much help. But I agreed to go. It was a warm and pretty day and I wanted to be out around the baby colts. Jimmy put the babies in separate stalls. I was just to hold the door and he was going to corner them and put the halter on. Jimmy knows cows like the back of his hand. He was raised around horses but his brother, Joey, is really the horse expert. But Jimmy didn’t think that he needed Joey’s help. He had put halters on before so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Our kids were little at the time but they were out there. I had gone out in flip flops and shorts. But it was a nice day.
One of the colts didn’t want to put that halter on. So I stepped into the stall to see if there was anything I could do. Then it happened. Something attacked my leg. I started screaming and hollering and kicking (with my flip flops on). I wasn’t connecting but I got out of that stall. Jimmy got so mad at me because I got the colt flustered. Then we both asked at the same time, what attacked me. He said that I screamed like I had been kicked. I told him I couldn’t have gotten kicked because I was at the colt’s head. Then we saw it. That stupid rooster was in that stall. I guess he saw a chance to get me and he was going to take advantage of it. And he did. He had flogged me!
I didn’t know what being flogged was, I didn’t know a rooster could do that. For those of you who don’t know, a rooster will take his wings and slap you around with both of them at the same time. It’s a defensive mechanism. It felt as though this rooster had grabbed hold of my leg and attacked me with his wings. I’m sure he didn’t grab hold of me but that’s what it felt like. I was lucky to escape with my life. Of course, Jimmy just laughs and laughs when I tell that story. I’ll just say this, we didn’t have that rooster for much longer after that.
We went a few years without chickens but a couple of years ago we got a few and started having fresh eggs again. Eggs were pretty expensive at the store so we decided that we would sell those that we didn’t need. But then our chickens started disappearing. They weren’t being attacked, as far as we could tell, because there wasn’t any sign of a struggle. But they were disappearing. Every other night it seems that one would be gone. Jimmy put a trap out but didn’t get anything. I borrowed my nephew’s game camera but we never found anything on that. So, we were just without chickens again. I read everything on the internet telling me what we would be looking for. Something just got them.
So last year we acquired more. I would like to say that we bought them all but we raised some from chicks, we had somebody else raise some from chicks for us, and we took some off of somebody’s hands. We had almost 20 chickens. We didn’t need 20 chickens. Jimmy said that it was okay because they wouldn’t all lay everyday and that something would start getting them again. I’m here to tell you that we still have most of them. And most of them are laying eggs everyday. But something was getting into our feed again. And whatever it was, it was big. And then Jimmy decided that something was getting our chickens again. As it turned out, nothing was getting our chickens again. They had found another place to nest and they were hiding from him. But something was definitely getting into their feed. So Jimmy put out the trap.
Jimmy likes to trap raccoons and such. He’ll do that and call someone who is interested in hunting them and have them relocate the raccoons to their hunting spots. But whatever this was was huge. Jimmy might have trapped it but then it was bending the trap back and getting out. This happened three or four times. But then he finally caught one raccoon and it was big. After that one was relocated then he put the trap out again. This time the raccoon about tore up the trap. So Jimmy went and bought 2 more, big ones. He used about a jar of both peanut butter and jelly and he ended up catching 4 more raccoons. I told him that they were the search party for the first one he caught. In the end he caught 6 raccoons in 7 weeks. He didn’t think I was funny about the search party.
So, right now, at this very minute, our chickens and their feed and their eggs are safe. So, if you need eggs you had better come and get them now because you never know what kind of drama will happen next week. Oh, and we get $2 a dozen for them and that’s cheap for cage-free non-certified organic eggs. Ask anybody.
Faith+Farm+Family
Somewhere to Build Me . . .
