At least I got a free egg out of the deal

We’ve harmoniously co-existed with the chickens next door for about 8 months or so. Every now and then, the dogs go to the fence and sniff really hard, but other than that, you’d never know they were there.

Until this morning. I have a cold/flu/the plague, so when I got up this morning to let the dogs outside, I was planning to climb right back into bed. That never happened.

I should have looked into the backyard before I opened the door. But, with a 6-foot fence surrounding our property, I never expected to have an intruder.

Bob, the overgrown puppy, blasted through the door as soon as my hand was on the latch. Simba was right on her heels. In that split second, I looked up to see a brown Speckled Sussex hen clucking away in the back yard, and it looked like the dogs were going to have chicken for breakfast.

The Plague has given me laryngitis, so as I attempted to scream No! Stop! Leave it! Get back in here!, I chased the dogs as they chased the frightened hen around the yard, her wings and my arms, flapping in time. Finally, the dogs chased her under the deck, I got the dogs inside, and sat down to catch my breath.

Wouldn’t you know, the lady who owns the birds is out of town, and out of cell range. Her husband is hunting and won’t be back until tomorrow night. But, their eldest son was at home, so he came over to see if he could find the hen. She was so far in the recesses of the deck that she couldn’t be seen. He surmised she must be hurt and dying, and went home. He was happy to leave it like that. Obviously, not a fan of the chicks.

I thought about the possibilities:
1. She could come out on her own
2. She could stay under there and die

I was really rooting for option #1. No way do I want a dead chicken rotting under my back deck.

I waited at the window, watching for her to emerge. An hour went by. Then another. My dogs still needed to pee. I took them out on a supervised pee break, headed back in and called the neighbor kid again.

He came back with bird food. Shook the cup, called “here chick, chick, chick” and… nothing. Not a sound from under the deck. No movement. I hooked up the garden hose, and started soaking the deck, thinking a mad, wet hen would come running out the other side.

Nothing.

We looked in one end, and around the other. We stomped on the deck. Perhaps I was overdosed on cold medicine, but I was getting frantic.

There’s a small section where the deck doesn’t quite meet the house. It finally occurred to me to remove the piece of wood we put there to keep the dogs from messing with the outside faucet, and heard a very pissed off bird. We looked in the hole, and there she was, with an egg, down in the window well. Did she get so upset she plopped an egg? Or, did she think she was going to be stuck there for life, and decided to hatch some company? Don’t ask me. I don’t know how chickens think. Or if they do.

Of course, there wasn’t room to get the bird out, so we tramped downstairs, opened the window, and rescued the bird. By “we” I mean, we both went downstairs, and he rescued the bird. And then rescued the egg, which he gave to me.

That’s why I buy my eggs in the supermarket. I can’t take the drama.