Chicken Run
By Bill, posted on 09/18/2005
It was a busy day here on the farm. It was long past time to build a new chicken run. Long past time -- we had a fox move into the neighborhood a few weeks ago and she's sadly mistaken our farm for an all-you-can-eat chicken buffet. I saw her once, sitting in the middle of the field clearly conflicted whether she was in the mood for original recipe or extra scrawny. She was a pretty girl. Her fur was the perfect rust color and she had a bright and alert face.
If I had a gun I would of shot her right then and there. That's how it works around here. One well fed fox can mean many thousands of dollars of damages up and down the road. I figured between initial investment, feed to get to laying age, combined with lost egg revenue each chicken lost costs us $300. This one has dined on about ten of our birds so far.
But seeing how I don't own a gun the worst she got was having to run away without dinner. I never liked guns much. When I was young a friend's brother shot and killed his best friend. He was showing off with his Dad's gun.
I do throw rocks at the hawks. Not a chance of hitting them but it makes me feel better. Our farmhand (age 4) has been trained, when he sees a circling hawk, to run into the field and yell "Go'way Hark!" The hawks are never terribly impressed and usually fly into the big oak tree in the pasture across the street, stare at us and say "I got all day. Do you?"
We lost a few more birds last night. It was a near-dusk attack and most of the flock was in the front yard. They were so upset they wouldn't go back to the coop which left me searching for them with a flash light. Found three on a fence and had to carry them back to the coop. Funny thing about chickens: I you carry them upright you need both hands 'cause they'll fight a bit. But if you carry them sideways they won't move a muscle so you can put one in each hand.
So, clearly, today was the day to rebuild the run. I built one last year and it survived two blizzards, but last march six inches of very wet snow collected on the top screen rather than falling through and turned the whole thing into twisted wreckage. Tried to salvage it twice but it was gone.
So the farmhand and I hitched the trailer to our little tractor and filled it with saws, drills, hardware and a box of cookies. It's only a 150 foot walk from the garage to the coop but if you take the tractor you have to take the long way to get to the big gate and then go to the far end of the pasture to avoid getting stuck in a gully -- takes about three minutes. Glorious minutes, really. I'm at the wheel. My son in the wagon sitting among the tools watching the pasture grass go by. And box of cookies.
Took about six hours to build the thing. Wouldn't think it would take so long but it does. I don't want this one to fall down. My farmhand behaved very well and enjoyed himself. We both enjoyed the cookies. At about 5:30 we packed up even though there was still a little more to do. There was a fair in the next town -- bluegrass music, sausage sandwiches and ice cream -- and we didn't want to miss it.
Last week at a rare family reunion I had a drunken cousin accost me, nearly yelling "You need to check back into reality, get rid of that damn farm and move into a suburb where your son can lead a normal life."
As we drove back through the pasture, a good days work behind us, another brilliant sunset over the farm across the street and looking forward to a greasy sausage sandwich his words came back to me.
No, cousin. No, thank you.
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