The cats and the chickens share the barnyard pretty well, scratching and chasing bugs. Tigger & Pooh, the fierce and mighty barn kittens go into the chicken run and eat chicken food. Some of the chickens go in the barn and eat cat food. This wouldn’t be a problem except the cats are ‘barn-broken’ and the chickens are not. I don’t want the chickens pooping in the barn, gosh darn it, I just cleaned it!
The dogs know when it is dinner time and they let us know it as well. Dinner time is the only time we can let our terrier Daisy out of the run without a leash, even then it is a bit of a gamble, however she usually makes straight for the kitchen door to get her meal. Except, last night she saw the chickens and took off after them sending 16 chickens running in all directions, Pooh climbed to the top of the hen-house, feathers and fur were flying. The teen was yelling at the dog, but as Daisy is deaf, calling her was no help. Well, the truth is she was never very good at coming when she could hear. My loving spouse came ‘sprinting’ (with a new hip and a bad knee, he was sort of ‘sprinting’) out of the workshop where he caught the dog with his boot, just as Daisy had one black chicken cornered.
With the dog and her proper dinner, which was not chicken back in her run, we set about trying to find the rest of the animals. Pooh was peeled off the side of the chicken coop and we started to count chickens. 9 inside the chicken house, 5 hiding behind the barn and 2 missing, 1 red hen and 1 black hen. No dead chicken bodies to be found or floating on the pond. No missing chicken anywhere! Those chickens may not be smart, but they sure know how to hide when they are scared. Both missing chickens eventually came back to the chicken coop, which eased our anxiety. We can’t let that happen again….
One terrier for sale… cheap.
