Chicken Feathers

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling! We must go and tell the king!"

Perhaps you remember this legendary line from my favorite story of Chicken Little. But, when a family of raccoons clawed their way through the wire top of Meagan's chicken pen, her poor chickens had no king to tell, and the Stobel family woke up to a pen full of chicken feathers. And quite a few bloody chicken parts and pieces. And one, barely living, scalped hen.

Victoria doctored that unfortunate chicken for several days before it finally succumbed to its injuries. The rest of us were amazed that a chicken could survive at all with only half a brain, but we have witnessed headless chickens flopping or even running around after meeting their ultimate destiny via an ax, so we shouldn't have been so surprised.

About that same time, our white chicken, Roberta, died unexpectedly of natural causes, so the Bauer family is down to one lonely, backyard chicken. And, I do mean lonely, because chickens, like many birds, prefer to live in flocks. Ernestine has been wandering around our backyard, looking lost, and barely cackling at all. (Click here if you missed my blog about Roberta and Ernestine, my Mother's Day chickens.)

Ernestine is no longer a happy chicken.

At first, after the Stobel chicken catastrophe, Meagan wanted to wait until spring to replace her flock of layers, because the cornfield surrounding her house provides way too much cover for sneaky raccoons and foxes. But, after the chicken yard was cleaned up, and the wire repaired, she decided that she didn't really want to wait a whole year until next spring's baby chicks would start laying.

And that's how we came to have eighteen baby chicks residing in our basement.

Meagan only wanted a dozen, but the minimum order was fifteen, with a few extras added to make up for the inevitable loss that happens when day old chicks are mailed from Missouri to western Nebraska.

Our rainbow chicks.

All eighteen chicks arrived, chirping and incredibly healthy, a little more than three weeks ago. Meagan ordered the rainbow selection of chicks, so as far as we can tell, we have at least seven varieties of layers, who will ultimately produce eggs of every possible color--brown, blue, green, and maybe even white.

Meagan and the kids were excited to see the new baby chicks.

Here is the real reason the baby chicks lived in our basement instead of Meagan's:
Ari was ready to crawl right in the box with those chicks!

Our basement is well-ventilated, with two strong exhaust fans that ran non-stop for the last couple of weeks to cut down on the unavoidable odor produced by baby chicks. (I remember my Grandpa complaining about the smell that permeated his car after he delivered several boxes of day old chicks to the farmers on his rural mail route.)

The chicks were three weeks old last Wednesday, and finally big enough to move out of the basement. We thought about putting them in the backyard to keep Ernestine company, but there are just too many little bodies to keep track of, so Meagan cleaned out her chicken coop, and on Saturday, we moved the chicks out to the Stobel chicken farm. They will stay safely inside the coop most of the time, until the corn in harvested. And then, in February, we can start to enjoy those farm-fresh eggs again.

"Birds of a feather flock together" in their new home.
(Photo Courtesy of Meagan Stobel)

Even Ernestine has quit laying, for the time being. She is molting, as all chickens do this time of year. The grandkids are thrilled to find lots of feathers scattered throughout our backyard. Maybe I should encourage them to peek inside of Ernestine's little coop. There is a whole pile of feathers in there!

I think I'll wait a week or so to clean out Ernestine's pen. By then, she will probably join the babies out on the Stobel farm for the winter. We are hoping that her mothering instincts will come to the surface, so she can help protect those chicks from predators and over-eager grandchildren. One thing is certain--she won't be lonely when she has a whole flock to supervise.

Ari, with his siblings and friends, can see the chickens every day now.
(Photo Courtesy of Meagan Stobel)

...o0oO.0oO.0oO.0.Oo0.Oo0.Oo0o...

Meagan's chickens didn't have anyone to call when they were faced with disaster, but we have a King who always hears us when we cry out to him, whether the sky is falling, or not.

I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies. Psalm 18: 3

"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:11-14