The insanity of the Chicken Transportation Unit

Do you ever do something day after day without thinking about what you're doing and just assume what you're doing is normal? Then one day you stop and actually LOOK at what you're doing and realize how insane you'd look to someone else? This is a very true statement for me, especially with my Chicken Transportation Unit.

Right now the hens live in a coop. You all remember the coop, right? Insanely bright teal and white number that was built by my mom's generous employees just so that I could have chickens. And you remember the hoop-run that my mom and I made using our Womanly Powers of Construction with power tools and whatnot??

Have you ever wondered how the chickens get from the coop to the portable chicken run?

No?

Do you wonder now?

Okay, good.

Well let me clue you in to my insanity. Every morning after breakfast I trek out into the already-humid-and-so-hot-that-your-hair-sticks-to-your-face backyard and say good morning to the girls. They hear me clomping over to them so they wait at the door of their coop for their driver.

I open the coop door and pick up each hen and place her into the large tupperware container that used to be their brooder box when they were hatchlings. It's filled with a layer of pine shavings and has a makeshift wire "roof." Clementine loves to be held and walks right up to me to be picked up. Maggie loves the chase and waits patiently for her turn to be picked up. As soon as I grab for her she BA-GAWK's as loud as she can and scurries around in circles. When I catch her, she continues to kick me with the hopes of scratching one of my fingers off. It's delightful. Then it's Sookie's turn. Like Maggie, she enjoys the chase, but instead of running around in circles, she merely ducks down and bobs and weaves without really going anywhere. Thankfully when I catch her she is quite content to be held and rarely puts up a fight. Here is Maggie charging the camera lens on one of her escape attempts.


Then I have all three chickens sitting in a box on a Little Red Wagon. Like a big goober, I then grab the handle of the wagon and pull the whole contraption across the yard to wherever the hoop-run happens to be sitting that day. The boys help me about once a week, but the other 13 times a week, it's all me.


We try to move the hoop-run around the yard every 3 days or so. This gives them fresh grass to graze on and stops the run-area from getting stinky from chicken poo. I get to the hoop run and open the door and then pick up the entire tupperware box and place it in the opening. I lean it over toward the run and open up the lid and give it a little shake. Clementine always hops out daintily and proceeds into the back of the run. Sookie always hops out with a mess of feathers and squawking and dashes to the back of the run. Maggie always flaps and flies with such mad abandon that she always knocks over the food container. Always.

Yesterday was even more special. We had workers in the yard digging a drain and they were quite amused with the odd blonde chick walking along with a red-wagon full of chickens. When I got to the run and lifted up the roof of the box, Sookie made a run for it. She veered off left and ended up in some trees. I then ended up crawling through spiderwebs and bushes calling her name, all the while hoping Maggie and Clementine didn't make a break for it since I had left the door to the run open to shoo Sookie back inside. It was awesome having an audience during this experience.

In the evening after I put my boys to bed, I repeat this ritual, walking out to the run, gathering up all three chickens into the box in the little red wagon, trekking across the yard to the coop and unloading them into the coop. And this was all seeming so normal to me.

Until yesterday...

...when I thought to myself….who DOES this?