First Eggs

I had just resolved myself to being satisfied with just having pet chickens when to my great surprise I found our first eggs while tidying up the chicken habitat tonight.

It was just after dusk, having returned from our post Weight Watchers dinner out with my parents, I was going through my evening routine of feeding, cleaning up various varieties of poop and settling everyone in for the night. While I had made time to get the newspaper pellets for the rabbit’s litter, I have yet to remember to get the wood pellets from the lumberyard, which according to Urbanchicken.com, make some sort of magic base for a stink free composting chicken floor. While skeptical about the author’s claim of only semi-annual cleaning, I do think that this material may well suited and of course is far less expensive than the material I am using for BB and GB. I had intended to procrastinate on cleaning out the “coop” , which nothing more than an old dog crate filled with local hay and two small litter boxes likewise filled for nests, until the proper material was procured. But my compulsiveness required at least a minimal effort and some straightening up.

I found the boxes a bit askew, and as I pulled them back to position the larger of the two eggs was readily visible. This prompted further search which revealed the second, buried behind in the hay floor. The hens sat above my head on top of the box, patiently observing me but making no motion. I carefully carried my treasure into the house and deposited them on the counter. I returned to find my wards contently snaking on a few greens I left behind. The girls obviously wary from their day’s efforts seemed eager to go to bed and only TC gave a lighthearted squawk as she hopped from my grip and into the crate.

Despite recently receiving an unsolicited opinion that “chickens don’t drink water at night”, I fashioned new water and food dishes that attached to the crate door, hoping to preserve the new paper litter I used to replace the soiled hay as a reward for their efforts. While Red Green may have dust tape, a strong but only temporary connection in almost all circumstances, I use the more technologically advanced and despite common myth, also readily reusable, zip tie. With the careful insertion of the tip of my pocket knife, I frequently save this trusty and most versatile plastic wonder from an unnecessary and unwarranted early destruction in all facets of daily life. Find yourself a little short? Connect two or more into a plastic chain that can bind a tarp, hold up your pants or keep your fender from flapping in the wind.

Feeling that I had made a good effort to comfort my now egg producing hens I left them in peace in hopes a that this marks a strong and steady production of eggs for some time to come. I returned to the house to find that Jamie had already placed them in a carton and prominently displayed them on the kitchen table. Eager to share my success I dialed Katelyn and described our yield in detail to which she responded by assuring me that “the big one is for you and the small one is for Aunt Jamie”.

Unfortunately all this success and revelry is not without consequence. Jealous of the chickens, the rabbits have begun acting out, chewing on the new mdf trim in the basement . This has brought great wrath from Jamie, their former supporter and friend who is now suggesting that they may need to move outdoors and is thus proposing some sort of conglomerate chicken / rabbit duplex enclosure in the new barn yard. Although he feigns a look of concern, Shorty takes no real action, merely lazily watching them perform this gratuitous act of defiance without so much a nudge or bark to scold them. Thus I am left to be their sole disciplinarian as well as defender. I am going to first try a squirt bottle in an effort to deter them and may also try to install some clear plastic corners over the edges, although some have expressed concern regards aesthetics.

So while chicken is off the menu, I fear that rabbit stew may not. My hope is that this phase will pass or maybe I can call on the rabbit whisperer to reason with them.