The case of the missing chicken

I am happy to report that all animals who are meant to live outside are now living outside. This includes: goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits. My 3 year old son has fallen in love with the silkie chick. When he goes outside, the silkie chick is in the child's arms for hours. Silkie goes with the 3 year old down the slide, on the swings, to feed the goats, in the tractor. Pretty much wherever the 3 year old goes, the silkie is forced to go as well.  When the 3 year old decides he needs to perform some important task alone, he will put the silkie inside the clubhouse to be retrieved later.  Amazingly, the silkie stays in the clubhouse until the 3 year old returns. The clubhouse has open windows and the silkie should easily be able to escape but my theory is that the silkie is too exhausted from all the play to think of exiting the clubhouse. 
A few nights ago, I went outside to close up the henhouse and put the various other animals in their proper habitats. The silkie beds down for the night with another small chicken in their own special cage (the teenage chickens are still being bully's to the little chickens so the little chicks can't go on the big henhouse just yet). The silkies' buddy was in his cage but the silkie was nowhere to be found.  Uh oh, my thoughts immediately went to the skunk that I had seen in the backyard one morning or the fox we saw chasing some deer the previous night.  Knowing that the 3 year old would be devastated, my family began a massive search for the silkie.  Foolishly calling it's name (it is my husband's chicken and he named it Dookie), the chicken has not yet appeared to know it's name but it is what we naturally do when a living thing is missing.  My husband and 10 year old took the massive searchlight and drove around the neighborhood looking for the silkie.  I and the 13 year old searched the yard many times but couldn't find the poor bird.  I eventually realized that if it were in the yard, it would have gone into the cage with it's buddy since they never separate from each other.  The 3 year old was asleep so we were glad that at least he didn't have to be stressed about the fate of the bird. 
I went to bed trying to figure out how I could find another silkie the same size and color before the 3 year old figured out that his beloved friend was missing.  I concocted a plan of a morning spent running errands that just happen to include stopping by the silkie lady's house and hoping that she would have one that matched the missing bird.  Knowing this plan would most likely not work, I started thinking about possibly finding a book that would handle the emotions of a young child with a missing pet.  Knowing there probably isn't a book that addresses missing chickens, I then started planning in my head the book I would need to write, illustrate and print.  No, I did not get much sleep that night.
I awoke the next morning and heard the 13 year old ask the 3 year old, "Do you know where Dookie is?"  I jumped out of bed, ran down the hall trying to decide how to handle the situation when I heard the 3 year old say "Oh sure, I'll get him."  He then walked to the free standing armoire that is just outside my bedroom door, open it up and retrieved the chicken from the bottom shelf.  He then explained, "I put him away last night and told him to stay quiet and I would get him in the morning!" 
The case of the missing chicken was solved. I only had to clean one chicken dropping off the shelf and learned that next time an animal is missing I need to either check with the 3 year old or start opening lots of doors.

The girls won't leave the coop

To follow up on yesterday's posting with the ducks...apparently I have absolutely no sense of size. I thought I had bought a duck that was twice as big as the original duck at home and was worried about the new duck hurting the old duck even though the only purpose of getting the new duck was to give the old duck a friend.  Well, they are the exact same size!  When I saw they were the same size, I happily placed them together thinking all would go well.  It did not go well.  Since old duck has been living with chickens since she was three days old, she thinks she is a chicken. She started pecking new duck mercilessly.  Poor new duck didn't know what was going on, having never been pecked by another duck before.  I told my husband what was going on, since he has more experience with fowl than I do. Husband assessed the situation and immediately began singing. That's right, he sang to the ducks because apparently that is what his fowl experience has taught him. What did he sing? Brace yourselves, it is a good one. Do you remember the song from childhood "Not a chicken Not a duck so I shake my butt..quack quack quack quack?"  If you don't know it, youtube it because it is quite catchy and funny.  Well, to that same tune my dear husband began singing "You're not a chicken you're a duck, you're not a chicken you're a duck, quack quack quack quack."  Over and over he sang this song and amazingly.....it worked!  Old duck stopped pecking new duck. They both just stared at dear husband as if he were a lunatic.  In hindsight, I now realize that his "fowl experience" mainly involves shooting and eating them but hey..it worked!
Now, my chicken woes.  Since the teenage chickens had to be kicked out of the house to make room for the new duck and new chicken we decided to put teenage chickens in their coop outside but not let them out of the coop yet. We wanted them to know that the coop was their home so they would happily march themselves into it each evening and thus prevent us from chasing chickens around the yard at night so they wouldn't be eaten by coyotes, cats, raccoons, etc.  Our strategy worked, a little too well.  The girls refuse to leave the coop.  We open it in the morning, try to gently lead them out (to our 13 year old gently means shaking the coop). I throw food in the yard, talk to them, explain to them. Nothing, those dang birds stay in that coop all day.  While I am glad that they are happy with the coop we chose for them, I want them to be free range.  I don't understand why they choose to not only stay in the coop but in the far back corner of the coop, all huddled together like they are in a prison camp.  This has been going on for a week now.  Maybe I need to get a rooster decoy to lure them out into the yard?  Or I suppose I could send dear husband out there to assess the situation and sing something to them. 

Duck Tales

We recently moved from surburbia to what we lovingly refer to as "our little farm." 2 flat, unrestricted acres...our dream! We are ignoring that the house is old and needs lots and lots of work and the never ending maintenance of upkeeping the place.
Well, we moved in and quickly acquired: 2 rabbits, 6 chickens, 2 goats, one pot bellied pig and 2 kittens.  Here is where the story of our little farming bliss gets complicated. 4 of the chickens were about the same size; small little balls of fluff. I insisted that I just had to have a silkie chick. I love silkies, with their funny little mohawks and fluffy feet. They remind me of little punk clowns.  The problem started when I saw the silkies for sale. There were various sizes and I thought for sure that the smallest chicks were the closest in size to our older chicks at home. I was very, very wrong. They were only about half the size of the older chicks. From past chicken ownership, I knew that the bigger chicks would peck the little chicks until they died so the chicks had to be separated. Now we had 2 sets of various sized chickens to clean up after until they were all old enough to live together peacefully.
No problem. Then one of the silkies died. Not wanting the remaining silkie to be left all alone, I tried unsuccessfully to get it a little friend it's same size. There weren't any little silkies left to be bought.  I tried to find more little chicks its same size but again, no one had little chicks.  So poor little silkie was left alone.
One of my husband's co-workers heard about our silkie plight and decided to help us out. He hatched us a duck and proudly gave it to my husband along with a chicken about the same size as our silkie.  Great! Now silkie chick has a friend.  The new problem is the 3 day old duck with no buddy.  My search for baby ducklings came up empty handed. 
We tried putting the silkie with the new duck and the new chicken. Silkie is a bully and wouldn't stop pecking duckling.  Duckling would hide under new chick like new chick was its mother. It was very sad to watch since new chick wasn't much bigger than duckling but tried its hardest to protect duckling. Well, since silkie seems to be strong enough to bully two roomates we thought she could hold her own with the older chicks.  Perfect solution! Silkie could now live outside in the coop with the older teenage chickens while new chick and duckling live together inside.  We were wrong, the teenage chickens were very very mean to silkie. 
New solution, silkie and new chick live together peacefully but duckling is alone.  The duckling does not like being alone and frequently lets us know by her loud peeping and flapping around her box.  So today, I bought another duck. It is twice as big as duckling but the expert duck lady at the duck selling store assured me that since they are both still young that the bigger duck will not kill duckling.  I have yet to put them together because my husband will not be a happy man if the duckling is killed.  Stay tuned for the ever evolving duck tale:
to recap:
4 chicks, 2 silkies
1 silkie died, 1 silkie left
1 silkie is too small to be left with 4 big chicks
Add 1 more chick and 1 duckling
Now we have 3 teenage chicks outside, 2 pre-teen chicks inside and 1 lonely duckling
Add 1 teenage duck and hope it does not kill lonely duckling
Not wanting any ducks, now I am the owner of 2 ducks and hoping that at least one of them will survive. I never knew raising something as simple as chickens and ducks could be so complicated!