Clipping wings

The chicken yard has been a pretty happening place lately. This past week it got a lot of attention from me and Sweet Man. When I go grocery shopping I like to look for the phrase. "Free Range" when it comes to my meat. That phrase makes me think of rolling green pastures with animals enjoying life they way God intended them to. So naturally when we got our chickens, I wanted to them to be free ranging on our property. Spending their days scouting out bugs in our forests, or enjoying our grassy fields. NOT roosting on my patio furniture, hanging out on my porch fighting the dogs for the dog food. We had turned our old dairy barn and fenced in area to the mac daddy of chicken coops, but they were just not content to stay in the 1/2 acre or so, of alloted ranging space. First thing in the morning you could almost hear one say to the other "Hey look how green that grass is on the other side" and off they would fly, right over the fence. So we watched a little tutorial on YouTube about how to clip a chicken's wings, and got right to work. Clipping ALL 37 of them! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and I can now catch a chicken in a mere few seconds.

They didn't seemed phased by this cruel little trick of ours.

 I love them so much more now, 

  that they aren't getting poo all over my porch!

There were a couple of other things that needed to be taken care of in the chicken yard. One being the mucking out of the main coop. Princess #1 wanted to help with this, and to get the eggs.  With the fact that our newest rooster had turned into the Tasmanian devil, it was not a safe place for the girls. He would in fact chase them all the way up to the back door, and wouldn't give up until they were in the house. I tried basically to kill him with my broom, but my soft bristles were no match for him. He just kept coming at me/them/anyone  he felt like. Sweet man ever so kindly "Took care" of him for me. :-) With the fact that he was gone I now had a helper with my chicken chores.

Since it was a chilly night Sweet man loaded our outdoor wood stove. It had the weirdest aroma though....smelled kinda like....chicken. ;-)