Our Haxtun Life Blog: Herding Cats . . . I mean, Chickens

Our Haxtun Life

Herding Cats . . . I mean, Chickens

Saturday morning Roy and I decided to give the chickens and guineas their first supervised outing. With long sticks in each hand, we opened the door to the chicken house. The birds stood hesitantly at the open door, as if it was a trick. Roy called to them and one by one they left the coop. To their great delight they found fresh plants and bugs on the outside!

The funny thing about this first outing was that they wouldn't leave the shadow of the chicken house. We guessed that they never had felt sunshine straight on their bodies before, so it maybe felt a little uncomfortable to them. It made our job extremely easy, though! I thought I'd be jumping every direction to keep them from scattering, but instead I relaxed and took pictures because they were so content in that little triangle of shade. Even the cat watched
at a polite distance. Let me just say:

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY!

The next day, Roy decided he wanted to clean the coop. The plan was for me to stand outside with the birds while he cleaned. No problem, I thought. But there were problems. First, the birds were not so shy about the sun any more. They came out faster and a little more spread-out than before. With baby in one arm and a stick in my other hand, I maintained loose control of the flock.

Then the cats gathered.

First, my fluffy house cat Kearney walked right up to the birds. They ignored him and he decided they weren't worth his time. He walked away. I breathed a short-lived sigh of relief.

The next visitor was Franky, who loves to hunt birds. I kept a weary eye on him. He stepped up, just like Kearney, without any air of stalking or hunting. He leaned toward a barred rock (black chicken) to sniff it. It took one look at him and decided to peck in a different direction, which unfortunately was away from the flock. Franky followed slowly, still not looking threatening. Two other barred rocks saw this and started to follow Franky. I relaxed a little because I suspected they would give Franky their opinion on cats with a peck or two!

But then everything went wrong! The lone barred rock pecked his way beyond the tree I was standing next to and Scooter (our dog who likes to eat chicken poop) sniffed his way between Franky and the barred rock posse. I could either run through the flock or around the bush - which way, which way! I chose to go around the bush. Too late! The lone barred rock realized he was being followed and took off with a lot of flutter. Franky could not avoid a good feathery chase and ran after him! Squawking came from the birds and me!

Roy came rocketing out of the chicken coop after Franky. Well, all our cats know not to mess with Roy, so Franky changed directions immediately and disappeared into a distant windbreak. The frightened barred rock made it back to the coop in the blink of an eye, leading all the birds back inside. No one harmed, thank goodness!

That was just the first few minutes of the job, unfortunately. Roy was not done with his cleaning, so the birds had to be coaxed back out. I set down the baby to watch from a short distance, so I could move a little faster if needed. I had to continuously sing "If you're happy and you know it . . ." while clapping to keep Melise happy, but it worked. We had one more little incident involving a collision between a guinea, grasshopper and a cat (Bibsy, this time), but it was solved a little faster. I gave Bibsy a tap on the nose with my stick and it sent him back off to the sidelines.

After what seemed like an eternity, Roy finished his cleaning and we herded the birds back inside. As we walked away, Roy said he didn't think the birds were big enough yet to roam freely - to which I totally agreed. But the thought of herding birds, cats, and baby again just wears me out!