The Great Escape

On Monday we picked up six brown hens to join our family.

Lach named two after his classmates - Carrington and Harley.

Will named two - Rosie and Willemena (no guesses where they came from!)

I picked Audrey and Andrew picked Roast. *sigh*

The nice man who sold us the hens suggested we keep them in the coop for three days, then let them out for an hour in the afternoon, then increase the time each day. I imagine this is to help them work out where they are meant to lay their eggs, where they are to return at night etc.

So day two and we were coping okay with our chookies who were happily clucking, laying eggs and doing whatever else chooks do. I was helping Lach with his homework yesterday afternoon when Will came in, sobbing hysterically and trying to tell us something that was just impossible to understand.

"Arrhbbr coop abrrja and annkr bsorus out".

Um, pardon?

Anyway, after a bit of coaxing and deep breathing, we worked out that someone (*cough* Will) had kicked in the side of the coop and six happy little hens made their bid for freedom after sniffing out the tiniest of gaps! Poor Lach and Will didn't realise that hens are meant to roam around outside and thought this was the end of our egg-collecting-chicken-raising venture.

"No more eggs", wailed Lachie. "Bye bye chickens. *sob, sob, sob*"

"What if the foxes get them?" screeched Will. "Can we buy new ones?"

Yes, well kids, you should have thought of that before you decided to aid the great escape!

Cue one phone call to Andrew to see how far away he was (not far) and a bit of magic with the staple gun... the coop was as good as new. (By this point, I'm thinking the flat pack chicken coop option wasn't all that brilliant to begin with, but anyway, can't fix that now!)

Meanwhile, the six hens decided they'd had enough of being penned in and were being quite obstinate about returning to their coop. But after some expert herding skills, we managed to lock the gate on six little chooks.

And I may or may not have had this song running through my head throughout the entire ordeal! Who wouldn't!