21 Oct 2004
Bad Chicken Day

Well, we're down to 203 chickens. One drowned today, in the stock tank. Stupid chickens ... I fished three others out in time today, and both Kris and I have grabbed others in the past weeks that have fallen in, but they seem strangely drawn to teetering on the edge of the tank, only to fall in.

It has become nearly impossible for me to move in the paddocks when the chicks are out - they think of me as either "mom" or "god" (and how much of a difference is there, really?) and swarm around me. It's tough to walk with 200 chickens clustering around your feet, pecking at your jeans, shitting on your shoes, chirping, clucking and peeping. I can't really muck out the coop: they just won't stay out of the way long enough. So I shovel as much shit as I can, and put down new straw and shavings to keep the little bastards dry. There's gonna be hell to pay for this eventually, though. Once they're all in my freezer, it's gonna take me two days, at least, to get all of the accumulated shit and straw out to the compost pile.

Mercifully, it's been cooler, so the smell is tolerable. But chicken shit gets very slick when it can't dry out, and we've been raining for most of the past week. I only rolled in it once today, and I count myself lucky.

But I ask you: how many other guys spend the morning in a high level meeting designing document management software, and the afternoon wrestling 200 six week old chickens in a barn full of bird shit? And enjoy the afternoon, frustrations and all, far more than the morning?

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