I wasn’t very excited when Graeme said he wanted chickens back in March because they are nasty, but I am a Nice Wife, and I am a Tolerant Wife, and I am a Hungry Wife who couldn’t find eggs at the store. So I gave in. We bought eight chickens and then accidentally killed three of them. Yeah. Not real proud of that.
I was excited, however, about building a chicken coop. We love taking on new projects, abandoning them once they are functional but definitely not finished, and then blaming the children for it. We made an exception this time and finished the chicken coop completely because chickens can’t live in a box in the bathroom indefinitely.
They were getting up to evil shenanigans in there, like the time one of them stood on the edge of the box, made eye contact with me, and pooped on the bathroom floor on purpose.
So we made them a chicken coop and it turned out pretty fancy.
Mama cat likes it.
Our cottage chicken coop turned out so nice and the chickens are so gross that a very small part of me is secretly, secretly yearning for the disappearance of the remaining poultry so I can turn this into a playhouse. Hehe. Naughty.
I kid, though. We are good to our chickens, except for that one time. And I do look forward to the eggs, assuming the four hens aren’t roosters pretending to be hens. Did you know that’s a thing? The most hen looking one started crowing the other day and now I am suspicious of all of them. If they all turn out to be roosters then I will have a playhouse and several new recipe posts.
It was green for a little while, but let’s not be silly now, of course it couldn’t stay green. Have you seen our logo? We painted over it with BEHR Starless Night. Graeme used my favorite stain, Minwax Provincial for the door. It gets a lot of sun in the afternoons, so it is a bit lighter than when we first put it up. There’s only so much you can do to protect wood against a flaming ball of fire.
For the windows and mullions we used wire mesh and spray painted it black, because glass would have gotten way too nasty way too quickly.
Of course it was essential for this photo shoot that the chicken coop had a wreath. Graeme and I had a wreath-making competition last year and this was my favorite.
It’s been a little while since we painted the chicken coop, so it’s looking a little chipped here and there. A more experienced (single, childless) blogger would have touched up the paint and made it look perfect before taking photos of it. But hey, this is real life. There are weeds in the garden, my towels smell a little weird, and today my toddler removed her own poop diaper. Thankfully it was a manageable consistency but man, I ran so fast.
Now Graeme is working on extending the chicken run, so the chickens can go on adventures and poop in new places (Oh, the Places They Will Poop!).
A few weeks ago, Graeme said he had to pick up a package at the post office. I thought that was weird because a friendly bearded delivery guy always drops packages off at our doorstep. Graeme shrugged and said maybe he tried delivering while we weren’t home so he took the package back. Hm. Doubly suspishy. We’re always home. The carpentry shop is here. We homeschool. I am an indoor plant. Strange, but…okay. So he took both kids to the post office and came back with TWENTY CHICKENS. And, you know…the kids.
That’s right. Twenty (20) chickens.
As you remember, we already had four, which, by the way, started a band during Covid because there was nothing else to do. Check out their 90s Backstreet Hens album cover:
Am I ori-gi-nal? (Yeeeah)
Am I the ONLY ONE? (Yeeeeah)
Anyways, the kids were very excited about the tiny chicks, the tiny chicks were freaking out, Graeme was very proud of himself, and I was reciting in my mind “She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life…”
I’m kidding, though. I really didn’t mind. I mean, we already had stinky chickens anyway, why not add twenty more? They’re kinda cute for a full 72 hours. Besides, Graeme said, some of them will probably die. Oh, good.
Why is shipping chicks a thing? It reminds me of that black and white photo of a USPS guy with a baby in his delivery bag. You know, before people realized maybe it wasn’t a good idea to ship babies. But, I guess since chicks don’t have souls, everyone is okay sending them across the country in a box. This is weird, right? Am I the only one seeing this?
Anyway…we have a total of nineteen chickens now, including our old ones (Basil, Dashboard, Carnivore, and Lincoln Log), because the prophecy came true and five chicks dropped dead in the first three days. It was pretty tragic, but not really because country kids are used to seeing their dads chop gophers in half, so Forest is pretty tough.
Oh!! Here’s a very, very important bit of knowledge I want to share with you in case you ever buy mail order chicks and would prefer it if they stayed alive. Graeme got desperate after the loss of chick #5, so he took every remaining chick, and individually dipped each one’s head in the water dish.
Immediately they all started drinking. Which goes to show how smart chickens are and why people are okay shipping them in boxes. How do you not see a dish of water until your head is dipped in it? Anyway…all fifteen chickens are alive and well and stinky. They have learned water is for drinking, and we have learned mail order chicks need to be baptized like Nacho Libre’s friend who only believes in science.
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