At the tree loppers yard where I occasionally mill a few logs, the lads and the boss decided to set up a chook yard. Being quite partial to chooks I pitched in and helped by making the nesting boxes complete with backdoor/hatch for easy access to the nesting boxes. Last weekend the chooks arrived, 8 very young leghorns and 6, 12 week old Rhode Island Reds especially selected by the boss as his pride and joy.
Around midday today I decide to take our two dogs to look at, and bring along a bag of kitchen scraps for, the chooks. The yard is in the middle of a mixed light industrial and market garden area south of Perth - it's pretty quiet except for the erratic stream of trucks rumbling past the front gate at 80+ kph. Arriving at the yard I let the dogs out and took the scraps to the chooks. Big dog and little dog wander over to check out the chooks, they have seen chooks many times before and not been that interested, but suddenly the bigger dog lets of 3 big barks and 3 of the Rhode Island red take off over the fence and head for the road with dogs in full flight. The dogs are sort of trained to stop and sit on command which fortunately they did almost immediately and I then hauled them back to my van accompanied by a few choice words..
Run back to check for the chooks - not a sign. Run out to the road - no sign of feathers or anything squishy on the road - whew!. Then start looking around the yard which is part of a 10 acre lot that was some 15 years ago plant nursery plant so there are overgrown groves of trees, weeds, ferns, shrubs, piles of rubbish, old vehicles, woodchips, and several old sheds, all in all, a veritable chook hiding play ground. Scramble through thickets, under old vehicles, tearing my clothes, look under piles of rotting hessian and netting, looking in the spider infested sheds - nothing. Move on to the blocks next door which on one side is vineyard, the other a house, and across the road is a market garden. Nothing. Just about to give up and ring the boss when I spied something moving in the garden of the house next door. It was a chicken trying to get back to the chook yard on the other side of the fence. I stupidly ran straight to it whereby of course it ran away. After working up a sweat chasing this thing all over the back yard of this house I remembered my chicken herding skills from my days as a kid. Looking around I spied a large garden rake and a straw broom and armed with these I eventually herded the chicken into a corner. It then ran under a large fern and got tangled in the thicket of weeds, roots and leaves and I got it. Whew! At least I had got one back which wouldn't sound quite so bad when I tell the boss what happened.
Keep looking going over old ground, round and round, half an hour goes by nothing, just about to give up and call the boss when I saw a chicken crossing the yard, also heading back to the chook yard. I just let it keep going. As soon as it saw the other chooks it ran head first into the chookyard wire where it got stuck, and I grabbed it from behind. Two back - I was beginning to feel, OK - I lost one - well one is hardly none, right?
But I kept looking under parked vehicles, inside old cardboard boxes, round and round. Another half hour goes by and then I decide to give up. I head to the main shed to lock up and I'm just about to slam the door shut when I see the last chicken strutting around inside the shed. It's a big shed, maybe 20 by 30 m with several trucks, a sea container and lots of piles of gear inside. Right, I said sliding the main door shut, I've got you trapped, and I'm not leaving till I got you. Well, round and round, and under the trucks the chicken went - there was no way this one was going to let me near it. Then I had an idea. I opened the door to the sea container, and turned on the lights inside, and then turned off the lights in the shed and sure enough the chicken went straight inside the container. The container was pretty full so it was easy to corner it and grab it.
After this I went to the supermarket and the check out dude asked me - "So how has your day been?" - I told him "I have been running around after mad chooks" - he didn't even blink kept feeding the items through the scanner and said "That's nice".. . . . . . . .. .
