Trapped

In August of 2016, I became a chicken farmer. (That's what my husband likes to call me anyway.) It all started with a dog house that I converted to a chicken coop, while living in town, and three young hens. They were different breeds, a Black and Copper Moran, a Cream Legbar and a Swedish Flower hen. Before the month was over I purchased two pullets (I thought). They ended up as a cockerel and pullet Barred Rock. Then, in September, I snatched up three Hy-line Brown hens from a commercial grower who was in a bind and needed to sell all of his hens.

During this time it was becoming more and more apparent that we really wanted to sell our home and try to live on our acreage we had bought about 4 years earlier.

By November we had a buyer and a closing date of November 29th. That gave us very little time to get things organized on our land in order to have my new chickens our four dogs and me! We had an RV and decided my son and I would live there with the animals while my husband and daughters would stay with his parents, until we could get our home set up.

Besides all that moving entails, we also needed to build a real deal chicken coop and run. This became quite the chore because my husband and I only have the most basic building skills. Nevertheless,  we built a nice coop, complete with nesting boxes, roosts, vents, main entrance and a little side door for the chickens to enter and exit the run.

 *I will have to add pictures in a better format later, as I am still roughing it in the RV with only cellular data for internet and the tablet I'm writing on doesn't have enough memory for pictures I guess. I added them using my phone but I can't position them neatly.*

One day not long after we finished our coop, our youngest, Ashley,  came out to admire our handy work. Jared had a migraine and was resting, so she and I went to inspect our new coop. We opened the door, stepped inside, and BAM, the wind blew the door shut and latched it! We were trapped. Neither of us had our phones, and it was pretty cool outside. What were we going to do? I then looked at her and then the chicken door and decided she was small enough to fit. So she crouched down on all fours and because of the slope nearly had to do a headstand... walking on her hands she slowly but surely was able to get out.




We had a good laugh and couldn't wait to share our silly little adventure with family. When we told my mother-in-law,  she laughed real big and said she had a story very similar about her mom, Jessie Bates. Keep in mind she would have been in her 80's:

This happened at the last house mom (Jessie) and dad (Troy or Lum, as he was called) lived in together on MM highway in the early 90's.
Behind their house was a divided building with two doors. In one side was garden tools and other stuff. On the other side they kept dog food, chicken feed, empty feed sacks a couple of barrels that they would put this food in and other stuff.

It was windy, cold weather and Mom, thinking she would only be out long enough to feed the chickens went out without a jacket or coat, to get feed. She had to enter the building to get the feed and when she did the wind blew the door shut, the handle came down and locked her in!

Dad was a late sleeper and when he got up, got dressed, he went out to feed his dogs. When he opened the door to the shed there was mom in a barrel with feed sacks stuffed around her to help her stay warm! He said, "well mom what are you doing?!". He then fixed the latch so that if it happened again she could get out.

Like Jared's Paw Paw, he fixed the latch on my coop so that it couldn't blow shut and latch ever again. And just in case, I try to remember my phone when I go out there.

I hope you enjoy these humorous stories. I will try to add pictures of Nanny and Paw Paw as soon as I get the chance. If you're reading this and have pictures please share. Especially if they include chickens or out buildings from this property.





Until next time,
Becky