Stalag Coop——-Part #1
This whole blogging thing is fun. But after writing about whatever happened to Colonel Sanders, I thought I’d best explain about our necessary poultry husbandry & maintenance.
Well, we live in a highly predaceous area. Things do go “bump in the night” here……..regularly. We originally got chickens for two reasons, and the first one wasn’t for egg production, although that is truly appreciated. (We have all been ruined now and don’t like the insipid pastel yellow yolks of the store-bought ones with the runny egg whites——but I digress——-I do that a lot.)
We first got chickens after I saw my younger daughter running towards me in the front yard one afternoon when she was a toddler. It was like a slow motion, bad dream. I saw her running my way while I saw a snake slithering perpendicular to her projected path. Some part of my brain recognized that it wasn’t poisonous, that it was a huge rat snake…….but a snake none the less. It was all happening so slowly and deliberately that I felt frozen in time. My daughter kept coming, the snake kept its trajectory and sure enough they met up like a bad “X” marks the spot. The surprised rat snake was stepped on half way through its body by my daughter’s Mary Janes. The aft part of the snakes body wrapped up her pudgy toddler leg going in one direction while the front half of the snake wrapped up her calf the other way……..like a bad trellis. It proceeded to gnaw on her leg. I’m sure I was screaming like a banshee and running, but I don’t remember.
I did get there and unwrapped the panicked snake. I’m sure I slung it somewhere. I called poison control who weren’t helpful at all. We came to the conclusion that a rat snake probably ate rats and that it didn’t have fangs (my contribution to the conversation) and that I should probably treat it by cleaning the gnawed scrapes thoroughly with everything I could find and apply antibiotics. My daughter’s pediatrician agreed.
Now you may be wondering……….weren’t we supposed to be talking about chickens? Well yes we were. And this is how we got them. I figured if I had a flock of chickens around the house, constantly pecking and scratching in the yard, then the likelihood of snakes feeling comfortable to sun or lounge around our yard would be less likely……… Enter my first flock of Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds headed up by Rooster Cogburn. And, it worked!