Murder!

I almost took pictures of the scene but it would have been too disturbing for young readers...stop reading now if you are faint of heart. A few weeks ago I heard a the girls making a bunch of noise and when I checked it out there was a opossum in the coop. Since the door was open the girls had escaped unharmed. The ugly thing just looked at me with it's evil beady eyes but I did not think much of it. Next day it was gone but so was CooCoo. I thought since she had totally disappeared that maybe the hawk had come back and gotten her since she was a small chicken. But the smell the next day led me to her dead body behind the coop. I think she might have flown there and gotten stuck but I am just not sure. Since she was my son's favorite he was devastated. We both cried for her. Then, a few days later I come out to find both red hens murdered in their coop! It was horrible. This time my son just shrugged it off and asked when we could get another one. He became callus pretty fast as you have to be living on a farm. The dead chickens stunk up to high heaven and I had to use heavy gloves and trash bags to clean up the crime scene while almost loosing my lunch. Thank you husband dear. So now with one poor black chicken left we are only getting one egg a day. And poor Blackie (as my kid has so creatively renamed her) hangs out on the back porch desperately wanting some friends.
As an aside, the five year old asks me if possums do not like black things and is that why he did not eat Blackie. I responded, yes, possums are racist. Joke was totally lost on him.

Update: Nov/ Decemberish 2014- Apparently the opossum does not mind killing all colors of chickens- Blackie was murdered and dragged across the yard almost under the fence. Makes me think that maybe it was a fat raccoon since she was a big hen and would be difficult for a opossum to drag.

New Neighbors

Exciting news. We hear Sonoma Wine Bar is moving in next door. This could be a good thing since it will be within baby monitor distance or could be a bad thing with having more traffic and all. That is where excess eggs come in handy.

Chicken Bath

Here is another day at the Henhouse of Horrors for our poor girls. My kid and the neighbor kid put the girls in the dog's water bucket and then proceeded to pummel them with a large ball. Fortunately I was able to stop the torture before any hens got hurt.

Tour de Coup

I love the idea of doing a Tour de Coop like they do in Portland or Raleigh. See the link below for Portland's fun annual event. I keep tossing the idea around of doing a Heights Coop Crawl or Tour de Coop of our own, and have even gotten a few other area chicken farmers on board, but when it comes down to it I am too lazy or busy to actually organize it. One of these days I will though. Trick is to open it up to interested folks but keep the authorities away since our hobby is actually still illegal in the City of Houston (shame I know). One idea is to make it a biking tour and offer egg based cocktails at each stop.  Other things I would like to do with my life if I had 10 free minutes include:  changing the city ordinance to allow urban chickens (within reason), protest Heights area Walmart and other bad developments, get my nails done, get botox, go to the doctor for the pnumonia I think I have had for a month, go to Spain for a month of language classes, and oh yeah- spend more time with my kids. So once I get those 10 free minutes I am going to plan this Tour de Coops I swear! Stay posted for dates.
http://growing-gardens.org/portland-gardening-resources/chickens.php