Chickens in the Yard... Mostly Ours

I let the chickens out yesterday while I watered and weeded the squash and bean gardens. I did not anticipate visitors from the other side.

No, this isn’t about ghosts, but rather other chickens. That is to say, chickens other than ours. After I was done weeding the squash and bean garden along our back fence behind the vegetable garden, I came inside to get a drink of water and wash up as well as sit and cool down. What can I say, manual labor and I are not friends, even fifteen minutes of weeding gets me all hot and sweaty and out of breath. No sooner had I swallowed my first sip of water, my partner asks, “Is that one of the neighbors chickens in our yard?” Sure enough, it was.

Now, a logical person would have simply gathered the bird and taken it back over the fence to go back to its home, but I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures of the bantam chicken and watched her as she had her first taste of freedom in perhaps her life. You see, the neighbors behind us keep their chickens locked up at all times and they never get to scratch around in the grass. Upon further inspection of both their coop and our fence, I found where she had escaped her home and found sanctuary in our yard. My partner and I decided to watch her for a while then just let her be and perhaps she’ll find her way back.

The new chicks are now growing quite quickly and spending a lot more time away from their mother. It’s sad they have to grow up, but at the same time I can’t wait to get our first chocolate eggs from Harmony, the Cuckoo Maran! I’ve noticed that of the three new chicks, the Speckled Sussex, Joyce, still spends most of her time in Kendra, her mother’s, shadow.

Eventually the mystery guest found her way back into her own yard but needed help from one of her owners to get into the coop. It got me wondering why people keep chickens if they have no intention of letting those chickens be, well, chickens. I’m not saying that they should let them free range or anything, but perhaps a plywood floor that absorbs all their droppings and releases the nasty odor into the surrounding air isn’t the best option for their health or anyone else’s for that matter. I’m sure that if they were to get rid of that floor in most of the coop except where they have the dog kennel the chickens use as a nest box and sleep on top of it at night and simply had a dirt floor they’d be much happier. Then again, the small amount of dirt around the perimeter has much evidence of previous escape attempts, or perhaps it is the only way they can properly give themselves a dust bath.

Anyway, I’d hate to end this post feeling sorry for chickens that don’t belong to us, so I also took pictures of the garden, namely the leek flowers that have been covered in bees since they bloomed. Our dog, Lucy, ran up the steps to the upper part of the backyard just as I snapped this picture.