The.Chicken.Diaries

Lumpy the Chicken’s journal of her adventures at the carazy permaculture experiment.

The Chicken Diaries -Day 1

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Dear Diary,

Friday 5th June 2015 – 9:00am
Things are chaotic here at the egg farm. A whole bunch of us have been moved over the last few days to special holding cages and and there’s a lot of gossipy clucking going around as to why. Word in the shed is that we’re off to some place called the “Shopping Block”. Hooray, I love shopping! There’s been a lot of cars coming and going all day. Small groups of us are taken and shoved into all manner of boxes and cages. I’m guessing that’s how they’re shuttling us to the shops.

9:30am

Oh dear, talk about Chinese whispers gone wrong. It’s the CHOPPING block, not the shopping block! I now have no idea if I really want to get into one of those cars, my small world is in turmoil. The good news is that someone put this appeal on something called FaceSpace or something and and it went viral and the egg farm owners certainly didn’t expect to be run off their feet loading chickens in cars all day. There’s a good chance a lot of us ladychickens may get an opportunity to prove that we’re not past our use by date. Wings crossed, I’m hoping I’ll be one of them.

The family that owns us supplies bulk eggs but also sell eggs direct to the public from a little shop out the front of their house. I can hear the farm employees complaining that they’ve been run off their feet constantly loading chickens into cars since 9am without a break.  The workers keep saying to the arriving humans that they’re running out of chickens. What about me? I’m a chicken. Oh dear this is highly stressful.

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The Chicken Diaries – #2

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Dear Diary,

6:00am

Woke up in a weird place. This is not the big tin shed. The other chickenladies are a little confused as well. There’s a milk crate blocking us from leaving the coop put there by our simpleton human that we’ve recently acquired. He thinks we need to get used to our little home and that we’ll be using the lovely nesting boxes he’s built for us. I can tell you now that none of us are in the mood to lay eggs today. Moving house is far too stressful! Also we want food dammit. All he’s left us with is a big bucket of rainwater which, while delicious, is not something we’re interested in right now.

 

9:00am

It’s about bloody time that lazy man arrived. I’ll be leaving a complaint at the front desk regarding this tardiness. The girls and I are squawking our disapproval about this lock-in and he’s just laughing. He’s just checked and there’s no eggs so the laugh’s on him, hah.

Our human moved the milk crate out of the way but the other chickenladies are super scared of everything. As for me, I’m outta here and heading to the buffet, that green stuff growing on the ground tastes amazing. It’s so different to the pellets we’ve existed on till yesterday plus it’s all you can eat.

The human has opened up the big side doors to the coop and shooing the other girls out. I have no idea why they’re taking so long. This is one of them dawdling at the door.

 

Now the human is staring incredulously at the massive pile of poop where we were sleeping in the corner. Humans are weird.

 

10:00am

The human came down from the blue building where I think he sleeps and he’s brought some tubs of something called home made yoghurt , mixed with sunflower seeds and molasses. Dear sweet baby Jesus this tastes so fricken good. The girls are literally burying their heads in it then flicking it everywhere when they realise their heads are coated in the gooey delicious mixture. The human is laughing at how greedy we’re acting. I mean some of the girls are actually standing in the tubs to stop others from getting to it. It’s almost embarrassing. Also he’s now coated in the mixture from us flicking it everywhere. While the others fight over the remnants I’m sidling up to the human to suss him out. What’s his story? Where did he come from. What are his intentions with us and does he have more treats for me? He keeps reaching down to touch us but we’re far to quick for that. I keep teasing him by going up and rubbing against his legs then running away when he reaches down. The other ladychickens just keep well away. As for me, I’m going to follow him and find out more about this strange being who’s taken us under his non-feathery wing.

He’s spending an inordinate amount of time watching us do our thing while he does his building stuff. He however keeps shooing us away while he’s working.  If he doesn’t want us to to stick our beaks into what he’s doing, why does he keep doing interesting stuff?

6:00pm

The human has a lamp on his head and he’s walking around trying to find sleeping chickens. Once again we’ve all just plonked down wherever we were standing when it went dark and not a single on of us entertained the idea of heading to the nice big house.  He’s scooping us up and putting us in the nice straw filled coop. I like getting tucked in. We’re a little sleepy while he does this and make soft cooing noises which I think he likes. One of the girls managed to find a sleeping spot under the piles of timber in the run. The human isn’t enjoying reaching for her and as a result she’s started squawking so naturally now we’re all wide awake. Our chicken pile in the corner is providing him with a great deal of amusement.  Little does he know that we’re not merely climbing onto each other for the sake of it. There’s an intricate chicken pile-on system that’s instinctively ingrained in us, but to the untrained eye I guess it can look like a bunch of stupid chickens sitting on each others’ heads.

 

He still hasn’t given us names. I heard that they don’t do that when we’re destined for the dinner plate. I really hope that’s not the case. Are all those delicious treats to fatten us up? Anyways time to sleep, and sleep-poop.

 

 

The Chicken Diaries – #3

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Dear Diary,

9:00am

We’ve been up for nearly three hours now and a little bit of food wouldn’t go astray. We’ve been here for nearly a week now and two of the girls have been leaving eggy gifts each morning while we wait for our lazy human to arrive and remove this milk crate. I think he’s blocking the door to get us using the nesting boxes rather than laying in random spots. He’s had to pick up a couple of eggs laid in corners of the coop and a couple of times in the middle of the run!  This mansion may be big but I want out and when he finally arrives I’m once again the first one out the door, with the other chickenladies still need coaxing to leave.

It’s a little weird getting accustomed to new ways. The food delivery system is in the form of a bucket with holes in the side but we also get lots of treats each day. So much so that the other chickenladies have taken to calling the human Treatgod because when he brings out those tasty morsels from the big blue house he lives in, we are his most devoted and devout followers. Some of the treats include blended pumpkin with molasses and mixed grains, various fruit platters and vegetable sides as well as regular snacks of home-made yoghurt.  We’ve almost finished all the green stuff growing in the run and we can see more outside of the security door but the human isn’t letting us get to it.

The other chickens are bullying me a lot. There’s a lot of henpecking happening which we do instinctively but the human sometimes gets angry when the others all gang up and pick on me. I think I might stay close to him. They are too chicken to do anything near him (See what I did there!).

I’ve been hovering around Treatgod all day helping him make and test out a ladder plus something called a roosting bar. I have no idea what it’s for. I’m assuming roosters use it, hence the name. We keep poking our heads in the way which is making the project take much longer.

As you can see I’m the only stunt chicken that is brave enough to climb up the ladder to the food. The others just run around below and squawk at not being able to reach the treats. I may be bullied and bottom of the pecking order but I’m the one at the top of the ladder! Silly ladychickens.

The human has had to drop the roosting bar down to half the height it originally was because we have no idea how to get up there. We begin the climb up then we freak out and jump down. Because some of the girls are still struggling with balancing on the thin branches he’s used, Treatgod has made a non-gapped ramp out of the ladder so we can clamber up.  Naturally I’m the first one up testing this precarious walk up to the narrow roosting bar. To tell the truth it’s the bribes of food he places on the bar that got me up there, it’s scary stuff!

 

 

 

Treatgod also picks up the not so brave of our group and puts them on the roosting bar to get them used to it. All they do is eat the food then jump down. It’s going to be a slow process. He’s so determined to get us up off the floor. It seems he doesn’t like us sleeping and wallowing in our poop. Personally I don’t see the what’s the problem as we’re perfectly happy there.

 

6:00pm

So once again it’s dark and the human is still picking up hens from all over the chicken run and putting them in the coop. This time however he’s placing us on the roosting bar. Naturally we’re jumping down and nesting on the floor in the corner in our comfortable chicken pile. A couple of us occasionally stay on the roost for a while but most of us insist on crawling into a crevice on the ground floor to sleep.

He really doesn’t like that some of us go into the nesting boxes to sleep either. Despite his efforts to shove plant pots and bits of wood in there at bedtime we still manage to squeeze in there and sleep all crushed up in our own private studio apartment. It takes up to 15 minutes before he gives up. I think he knows that even the ones who were staying on the roost have jumped down and joined the chicken-pile the moment he’s walked away. Treatgod is not amused.

PS: Treatgod still hasn’t taken the time to anoint us with names. I really wish he would.