This isn't a complaint, isn't a question.. just a story I thought i'd share. Hope you find as much humor in this as I did, in the pouring down rain, 40 degree temps at midnight.
If no one heard.. Idk if it made national news or not, we got like.. 9 to 12 inches of rain in various areas maybe more in 24 hrs. EVERYTHING is flooded. My chicken coop had near a foot of water under half of it at one point during the heaviest rains.. & I live on teh side of a big hill. There is a small wet weather crick that runs thru the back yard tho. The water running downhilll on my yard was 4 inches deep & i wasn't going out bc i could see that no chickens were on the ground... so I left them till the rain slacked off enough I could see at least 25 ft out the front door. Which let me tell you is still a very hard rain. This was close to midnight. It was freezing cold, I was wading water to get to the chicken pen thinking the lovely darling sweet girls were so wonderful smart would have went in the nice, warm coop to be sheltered from the rain. I was simply going to close the door without falling down & wade back to the house with my nifty huge umbrella before the lightening got me. I step around the lilac bush & throw my umbrella in the air as Mr Mouth squawks at me from his perch on the door posts into the old pen.. in the full on pouring rain. Scared the life out of me seeing as he was barely 6 inches above my head, its pitch black out there & I couldn't manage a flash light & the umbrella at teh same time. I look up & notice not only is he out there but there are 6.. yes 6 hens sitting there with him. Tiny who is a very small bantam was so fluffed out I thought she was an orpington... I proceed to tell them how stupid they are, seriously thinking about saying some very not pretty words to these chickens (including telling one roo he is near chicken soup bc he beat my face with his wings) who are freaking out bc i'm plucking them from a 6 ft perch where they were sleeping to toss them in the coop door. and i mean toss.. i all but threw them bc i'm getting drowned & beat by wings & claws. The ungrateful birds treated me like i was trying to kill them. One EE beat the crap out of my face with her wings, i tossed her, missing the door (she landed neatly on the chair that was next to the door) & she ran.. a Buff Orp took off after her & i tossed in the last one i could grab.. promptly slammed teh door shut & told the other two that i didn't care if they drowned. You should have heard teh squawking.. the roos starting carrying on, telling me off. I could hear them for a good 30 mins after i got back to the house. This morning when i went out to let the others out & feed them the two wayward ones came up all snuggly & repented. Tonight they were in the chicken coop too. Surprisingly I had 6 eggs this morning. :) maybe i should yell at them more often. Being sweet has never gotten 6 eggs in one day.
Floating Chicken coop?
OH you won't believe the visual I got from reading this story. Greykyttyn you came across more like a roaring Lion. I laughed myself sick. And to think that it was all at your expense. What a wonderful bedtime story. I will probably wake my dear wife up laughing so hard. Thanks for the story, I needed that.
ROFL here!!!
{VBG] those EE's can make a noise like nothing I've ever heard before. Twice now I've had to retrieve one that decided open air sleeping would be nice. I live in a place where the neighbors aren't really close, but sound carries well, and both times I made sure I was dressed and coherent in case the cops had been called over the screaming chicken. Didn't sound like a chicken at all, but did sound like "murder most foul" (or should that be "fowl"?).
I have my first EE`S they are 5 months old now and if one of the others even just touches them they scream bloody murder.The first few times I ran to see what the poblem was and now I don`t even bother just think that someone looked at her the wrong way.
I had to pluck 3 EE's off the door post tonight & we do have close neighbors. Its sounds awful! One Orpington is now roosting on the roof of the garage.. where i can't get to her. She talks & talks to me wheni go out to put them up. I left her out in the rain the other night bc she refused to come down.
I do have another flood story.. tho this one is sad. There is this crick that gets out... way out.. its like 10 ft above the banks. It was up in this house yesterday came down far enough that it is about 6 feet away from the house now. But nestled against the house is a chicken tractor. I was at the neighbors (a friend of mine who lives about 100 ft above this house on a clift) with the binoculars looking at teh house & flood waters. THEY LEFT THEIR CHICKENS. We had warning about this & they just pulled the chicken tractor up to the house, which left the chickens roughly 4 ft of roosting space above the water IF the water didn't raise any higher. They could ahve gotten them out. The chicken tractor has a hitch like a trailer.. they could have pulled it up to the neighbors or even put it up on the road where the water didn't get. but no.. they left them there to drown. They left teh chicken coop door open so they can come & go. They have grass to eat right now & plently of water... but the last time the creek came up the chicken coop was under water! I couldn't believe he left the chickens again after loosing all of them & several cows last time. I felt so bad for teh chickens. They looked happy today but i'm sure they were terrified yesterday as the water kept rising.
So the big question here is, why do these loony birds prefer to be outside on the fence in the pouring freezing rain, rather than hunkered down in a snuggly roost.
Makes no sense to me!
I too "saved" several the other night, we got 4 inchs of rain.. two of the babys that have not really been touched by humans.. screamed like I was slaughtering them feather by feather.. I have NEVER heard a chicken scream like that.. SO much for saving them ;-)
I'll watch and save the smart ones.. LOL
If it gets really cold.. they go in. its a decent sized coop.. plenty of room for them. They all have a roosting spot. so idk. The neighbors chickens have been doing the exact same thing this year. He's never had the problem before either. i swear they talk across the road to each other.. " Hey look! This tree has a better view than the coop, fly up there & sleep, you can see the sun come up!"
I only had 6 on the post last night. 2 roo's & 4 hens. ONLY one sounded like i was killing her. Thank goodness! it was raining & the sound carries so much in the damp air.