The Great Escape...

Earlier this week, during a heavy downpour, with flash flood warnings, I received a call from my daughter to tell me that Buffy had made a run for it, or rather a fly over, if you will. I guess she had had enough of being picked on by the other three chickens, one of whom is particularly large and unrelenting in her pursuit of letting Buffy know who the boss is.
You see, Buffy has spent the last several weeks in a state of broodiness, refusing to come out of the nesting box of her own volition, day or night. The other girls took to taking turns in the remaining box, but should two of them feel the urge to lay at the same time, well, one of them was out of luck. Regardless to the amount of scolding, Buffy wasn’t budging. It was pitiful actually. Since a broody chicken won’t lay eggs, she either sat on the eggs of the other chickens eggs or else on an empty nest. We would take her out a few times a day to make sure she ate, drank, and got some fresh air, but she would hastily make her way back up to the box as soon as we went inside.

When she finally did give up her quest to “hatch an egg” and came out of the hen house of her own free will, she was met by three somewhat miffed sisters. They wasted no time in letting her know her club card had been revoked. That first evening, I heard loud squawking coming from the hen house and went over to investigate. Buffy was trying to get up on the perch to sleep (for first time in weeks), but Letty wasn’t having it, pecking at her and trying to knock her off the perch. I’m not sure how it ended up that night, but Buffy has been spending her days with a little distance between her and the other girls.

So, she flew the coop, over the 6’ tall privacy fence, into the alley behind our house. My daughter and her girlfriend found her outside the back gate, soaked and visibly shivering, but each time they tried to get near her, she ran or flew further away—did I mention how fast she is? They managed to get her to the threshold of the gate using long sticks to encourage her along (that way they didn’t have to get too close), but just as they thought they had her, she turned around and flew down the alley into the backyard of a neighbor. This prompted a text message to me stating “Buffy is about to die” as there was a large black lab in residence who was barking frantically from the back deck. Luckily, he seemed unaware of the chicken in his yard, focusing his full attention on Amanda and Rena.

Amanda walked around the block to the front of the neighbor’s house, by this time as soaked as Buffy, knocked on the door and announced that her chicken was in their backyard and would they mind bringing in their dog so she could retrieve it… “Your chicken?” This prompted a brief discussion about where exactly in the neighborhood we lived and help in rescuing said chicken. Traumatized, but none the worst for her adventure, Buffy was caught—after trying to stuff herself through a slat in the fence—and returned to the safety of her own backyard and the lukewarm welcome of her big sisters.

Chicken Coop and Run

Free range chickens are a beautiful thing, but if you’re an urban farmer these free spirits can wreak havoc on your garden. We (aka Mr. Man) built gates to enclose and protect the vegetable garden in the spring, but the girls managed to nibble at everything planted at the perimeter as well as those plants that grow tall; they just perch on the top rail and snack at their leisure.














We loved letting them have the run of the yard, until they decided to nap on the backsteps and poop all over the patio, and then there’s the disturbance of the landscape plantings—mulch kicked onto the paths, holes dug around new plantings, leaves eaten from bushes. Early this spring I laid a flagstone path along one side of the shed leading to the utility area where the compost is. I planted this with ferns and hostas as it doesn’t get much sun—my own secret garden. It was lovely, until the girls discovered it. They nibbled every last needle from the asparagus ferns and have torn the hostas to shreds. Enough!

Over the last two weekends Mr. Man worked to build a run for the chickens (that shed was the best investment we have ever made!). They still have a large amount of space, extending from the coop to the shed and behind, all the way to the other side. Mr. Man added a new door to the coop that leads to the run, providing them free access to the compost and the decomposing vegetation and fat worms that live there, effectively cutting them off from the rest of the yard and my secret garden.