Friday, August 3, 2012

Fowl Play

If you're petrified of chickens, I'm sorry if you have nightmares after reading this...

With every truck load that we take to the butcher, chores become that much easier. Or maybe it's just a matter of perspective. Either way... We've got the annual chicken invasion in full force. There's chickens in the field, chickens in the blueberries, chickens in the orchard, chickens in the pasture, chickens in the coop, chickens in the barn, chickens in the brooders, chickens in the garden (where they're not supposed to be), chickens eating the flowers in the garden, chickens by the front door, chickens in the chicken tractor in the pasture in the farm. Okay, I'll stop. ;)

I think I've got birds on the brain. It makes sense - we had over 300 meat chickens  running around at the same time (and that's not counting the layers or the other poultry that we have). We had a mad dash trying to crank out chicken tractors to accommodate the masses. I think we're crazy.

With the sheer volume of meat that we have cruising the hood, we've seen some weird stuff too. But nothing quite like the dinosaur bird. Yeah, if I believed in evolution, this bird would be getting in touch with its original reptilian state. Yet it's a runt of a Cornish Cross, if you can believe that. Let's just say that doing chores in that chicken's pasture is never boring, and if I had a soundtrack to my life, the Jaws Theme would be playing. Chickens peck, to be sure, but this mini-monster has this thing with toes. It will hunt your little piggies down and bite HARD with no thought of letting go. This dude wants your flesh. o_O So I dart to-and-fro to quickly get those birds food and water. But the other night, Mom needed to count the bigger meat birds in that pasture to give the butcher a close estimate of how many we'd be bringing in the next day. I didn't warn her in time. Next thing I know, that little bird is chasing Mom all over the pasture for a good 10 minutes trying to get a bite. It was a youtube moment - if only I had the camera handy. I guess I was laughing too hard to even think of grabbing the camera. :P

Not to sound morbid or vengeful, but I think that we all look forward to a certain chicken dinner in our future.

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