Chickens

This morning is absolutely gorgeous outside. I apologize to the majority of you here in the lower 48 who are not so lucky.

With the sun shining brightly in a cloudless sky, I decided to let the chickens outside to roam around and free-range the backyard. This isn’t an uncommon thing, it’s just a matter of me getting my lazy ass up to the furthest point in our backyard where the coop is, unlocking it and letting them out. Normally a few of the older hens will want me to pet them but today they all seemed to be itching to get out and enjoy the sun. Can’t say I blame them, but I don’t know how much longer we’ll have them so it saddened me a bit that Dawn or Tara or even Kendra, who always seems to want me to pet her didn’t stop and squat.

Alas, I suppose we should let them enjoy this yard for as long as they can before they eventually end up at our friend’s house. Well, technically our friend’s wife’s house, and technically this friend doubles as my boss. I know that one of our other friends from church was wanting to start keeping chickens, but I think she is a little hesitant since reading my blog and Facebook statuses that focus on my overexaggerated descriptions of chicken chores. Seriously, five minutes a week cleaning with daily egg collection. Okay, so usually during the winter our egg collecting is every other day or so. If she can be convinced to take a few hens, we’ve got a couple pullets and their mama who’d do well in her backyard.

Of course, the thing I hate is that we spent all that time and money into the chicken coop to make it something we’d actually want in our backyard. Unfortunately it is just way to heavy for the average pick-up-and-move-somewhere-else deal, but we’ll see where we can go. Honestly, it is fairly predator proof, and I’d be tempted to see about relocating it to our church’s community garden where a portion of the food produced goes to the shelters. I think the girls would do well there, and they’d be making some of the best compost in the world. Well, six would do well there, as I would think they couldn’t free-range any longer, and nine hens is too much for them to be cooped up all day. But six is perfect. Eggs for the homeless shelter and compost for the garden which will produce even more food. Hmmm… I wonder if this proposition will work?