I rode my bike past a nearby neighbor's house Saturday and observed a raised-bed building project. The new neighbors weren't ready to move into the house yet, but knew it was time to be about gardening. As we compared notes, they haltingly shared a dream of becoming an urban farm. They also stated that they had just spent $450 for dirt, which causes the conservative urban farmer to balk a bit, but anyway...They mentioned they were interested in chickens. I said, "we've got some chickens."
"Are they easy?"
"Unbelievably so."
But then there's that problem of going missing.
The last Sunday in March, a colleague of hubby's brought us 3 chicken sisters. We put the 3 immediately into the confined area, where we thought we'd let them get used to things for a few days before letting them out.
The very next morning, hubby came in and choked, "there's only two chickens out there." No clue to how one could have disappeared.
Later that afternoon, a tour of the perimeter revealed a headless chicken in the back 40, feathers showed a sign of struggle, mainly by the fence. We have been told a missing head is the sign of fox-action, but how could this be? The fox would have had to open and close the gates into the chicken house, and remove the chicken without any struggle at all. We were immediately convinced that human action removed the girl from her perch, and maybe human dropped it and fox picked up later.
All this is to say, well, raising chickens is easy, but not without its challenges.
Elizabeth Giddens wrote about it in the New York Times, Feb. 2 of this year in her own version of chicken-rustling. How a loss can unify a community.
Anyway, we're glad to be in the chicken business again. Those girls are just funny to watch. And they love us so much.
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