A Rooster in the Hen House...

We took the leap a few months ago and officially became the owners of five "backyard chickens."  The experience has been interesting, but mostly fun, so far.  A little before Easter Kent took Kaden and they picked out five little baby chicks.  We have Dottie, Buttercup, Daisy, Hoppy, and Penny.  They were so cute and fuzzy...

The chickens spent about the first five weeks inside our house.  They all lived in a big box (the one that the trampoline came in) in the laundry room.  Towards the end of the five weeks, I was getting pretty desperate for Kent to finish the chicken coop. The chickens were starting to jump up on the side of the box and just sit there.  None of them had really jumped out, though, so it seemed manageable.

One day I had my friend Song over.  After seeing the chickens, she asked if she should close the laundry room door.  I said, "No, they never jump out. It will be fine."  About an hour later, I walked downstairs and was shocked to see two chickens in the bathroom, one in Amy's room, and about 30 piles of poop on the laundry room floor!  I was shocked.  Apparently they were willing and able to jump out of the box.  Since Kent was leaving for the weekend, he quickly constructed a lid for me to cover the box with and the following week, they chicks moved to their new coop.

And now, after almost 3 months with these creatures, we have settled into somewhat of a routine.  In the morning we let them out of the coop.  They hang out in their yard all day, and in the evening they go back in the coop for the night. There were a couple of weeks there where we had to run around chasing the chickens at night with a broom and our bare hands trying to get them back into the coop. One night Kent was out of town and I was out there in the middle of a thunderstorm and hail desperately chasing scared chickens all over the yard and threatening to leave them on their own if they didn't get in the f%$#&* coop!  So, there was some cursing and there was some questioning as to why we ever decided to get chickens in the first place.  After a couple weeks, however, we have learned easier ways to coax the ladies back into the coop and things are going much more smoothly at night.

So, with a few hiccups, this owning chickens thing has gone pretty well smoothly except for one thing.  We have had a lingering and growing fear that Dottie may actually be a rooster. This would be problematic for several reasons.  The first, and most obvious is that neither I nor my neighbors want to hear that cock-a-doodle-doo at some un-Godly hour of the morning...every morning.  Secondly, we want eggs that we can actually eat, not lots more baby chicks.  I also think it would be quite disturbing to be trying to make my fried eggs in the morning and crack the egg into the pan only to find a not fully grown little chick starting to sizzle in the heat.  Yes, disturbing on many levels.

Back to our current problem...Dottie is the biggest, she (or more likely he) is the meanest, and has the look of a rooster with the red plume on top of the head and below the beak.  Multiple people with some level of experience raising chickens have now told us that they think we have a rooster in the hen house.  So now, we have a big problem on our hands.  Dottie is going to have to go...but how? and when?  Kent is trying to figure out when her meat will be at its prime.  I have decided that I want nothing to do with the disappearance or the eating of this chicken.  Yes I eat other chicken, and yes I will eat the eggs...but I have fed Dottie since he/she was just a fluffy little thing and I just don't really think I can stomach eating him.  I know, I do not make a good farm wife.  It is what it is.

In the next few weeks to months, something will have to be decided and something will have to be done.  Dottie will likely to continue to get louder and her/his presence may prevent us from getting usable eggs from the other chickens.  At this point, we know we have a problem and we don't fully know what to do about it.  Any suggestions?

7 Months Old!

Little Alllie Jane is all grown up! Not really, but she is getting bigger by the day.  I think we could also officially consider her to be mobile. She is not crawling, but she is quite efficient with scooting forward on her forearms.  She can get just about anywhere she wants.  We are very close to having to baby proof this house, which we are nowhere close to at this point.  Every time I turn around she is into something new...chewing on an electrical cord, organizing my papers that need to be filed, emptying the trash...whatever her little hands can get to!

After a successful initial attempt, Allie showed a complete and unflinching hatred for baby rice cereal.  So, we have now moved on to other baby foods.  So far she has had sweet potatoes, squash and carrots.  She tried bananas, but did not seem too pleased with those either.  I remember with my first two kids being much more methodical about introducing new food.  Every few days we would add a new food, just to make sure there was no adverse reaction to the previous food.  This time I just sort of walked past the baby food in the grocery store and used my arm to swipe about 20 containers into my cart as I was walking by.  Then, if I actually remember to feed her food, I just grab one out of the pantry and that is what she gets!  Very scientific if you ask me.

One of her milestones in the last week was going from both arms being swaddled when she sleeps to having one arm free.  She is now the one arm wonder when she sleeps.  We had to make the move because she was rolling onto her tummy with both arms being swaddled and then she was kind of stuck.  She is still rolling over with one arm out, so I think we may be done with swaddling in the next couple of weeks.  She already has three appendages free, just one more to go!

(Don't mind the ace bandage, it's just a little extra insurance on the swaddle!)

We all continue to absolutely love and adore this little girl.  She is such a ray of sunshine in our house. She is still just the happiest little baby and always smiling.   Kaden and Maddie are always excited when she wakes up and they can play with them.  They are such loving siblings...just a little overbearing sometimes.  I feel the worst for her when we are in the car.  Allie is facing backwards with a sibling on either side leaning into her carseat and talking right in her face.  Personally, it would make me a little claustrophobic, but she is usually a good sport about all the attention.