Sounds so biblical, doesn’t it. Actually, I was tending to the chickens. It’s been so wet here the past month that their coop and their pen were super-wet and gross. So, I cleaned them out today. This entails removing all the old straw and replacing it with new straw.
People think that having chickens is a lot of work, but I have to say that we don’t really work that hard for our girls. I guess you could work super-hard, but we don’t–they are pets for us, not our livelihood. The cleaning process has four basic steps:
1) I went to the feed store and got a bale of straw.
2) I raked all of the old straw out of their coop into their pen. We have a little door at the bottom corner of their coop that we use for this.
3) I filled their coop with new straw and put new straw on top of the old stuff that got raked into the pen. Then I filled the rest of the pen with straw.
4) I changed their food and water since that hadn’t really been done in awhile.
The end.
Even though the chickens are free range during the day, they stick close to the pen to keep tabs on the process. They make these worried muttered clucks while they check out everything. Every time I leave the pen to do something, they run in and see what’s happened. They jump into the coop and check it out. The peck at the new straw, hoping that there will be new bugs to eat. All the while, they mutter and cluck to themselves.
At the end of the process, which takes less than an hour, I am covered with straw and straw dust. But, I am always happy to have done it.
Tonight the chickens are tucked away in their newly clean coop with new straw, dreaming of a corn-filled Christmas.
Have a wonderful Christmas Eve! And while you’re at it, go over and wish Sasha a Happy Birthday!
Lucky chickens.
Thanks for the birthday wishes, you are so sweet!
Happy Holidays Jeanne, see you next year!