Stupid chickens, I hate chickens.

All my life my grandma has told me stories of how she hated chickens.  Her family raised them and she has carried with her a hatred of chickens and their feathers ever since.  Jay decided we needed to raise chickens.  So Jay took the kids and they bought 25 chickens at Rural King.  We had one of the bloodhounds at the time and Abby.  For the first week or so, they stayed in the basement in the utility room...far, far away from me.  They were pretty simple then.  They were tiny and didn't really require much care...for a while.

Then they started stinkin' and I booted them outside.  Once they were relocated outside, in probably one week's time, we had lost a handful of chickens.  Their heads were tweaked right off their bodies through the cage.  We are guessing it was a combination of dogs and turkey buzzards although I still say dogs, plain and simple.  It came to pass that we had one hen, three roosters and a duck, with one deformed wing, (from the scramble at the fair) remaining out of the 25.  You can imagine the horror the hen suffered at the mercy of three very competitive roosters. 

These animals just roamed our yard.  We would come home and they would be in the garage on the top step that goes into the house.  And "they" would be the hen, three roosters, the duck, a bloodhound and a lab.  Seriously, it was party central.  Or we'd come home and they would be on top of the deep freeze, I suppose because of it's warmth on the outside.  In fact, the hen started laying her eggs on top of the deep freeze in the garage!!!  There was one instance when there was chicken poo on the trunk of my little gray car in the garage.  It was outrageous.

One afternoon in particular I remember going out to feed them and on my way back to the house, it was just like a scene from a thriller movie.  I would take a few steps and hear something, so I would stop, the noise stopped.  I would start again, hear the noise and stop.  The noise would stop again.  I would turn around and that stupid mean rooster (one was far meaner than the others) was following me, ready to attack.  It got so bad that I would only go out there with a broom to defend myself.

Finally, we had had enough.  The kids hated the taste of the eggs (I realize they're supposed to taste better), and I hate eggs in general unless they're mixed in a cake, brownie or cookie batter so there was really not point to these creatures except their poop was everywhere and the one rooster was mean.  We gave them away, a couple of them to Madolyn's friend and a couple to my brother.  I think my brother even decided the mean rooster had to go.  He was so vicious.

That is the story of the stupid chickens.  I try to never say never, but I sure hope that we never, ever, ever have chickens again, period.