Houdini Chickens

Last night I made another futile attempt to confine my chickens. I've seen other people with chicken coops, and chicken yards, and their chickens are IN the coops and yards. But not mine. Nope! Mine have discovered how to morph themselves from medium sized feathered birds into jello-ey slime so they can slip through the smallest hole in the wire.

I took left over chicken wire (this is chicken wire, chickens, chicken wire! It's supposed to hold you in!) and patched up every hole and space I could find where they might be getting out. I've clipped their wings. I've only fed them in the coop.

Oh, sure, they all go in at night, to roost, and I snicker and giggle that now I've really got them confined. But when I get up in the morning, they're all out in the yard again.

This seriously has me stumped!

Seriously.

Stumped!

I've been outmaneuvered by horses and cattle before, but they're a bit bigger than I am, but chicken? Come on!!

Pigs have gotten the better of me, but not chickens. That's just wrong.

Now I'm on a mission. I MUST find where they are escaping. Either that or forfeit the tomato crop I've worked so hard to weed and unearth.

They do love them their tomatoes!

So, tonight, again, I will put them away, clip all previously unclipped wings (of which there can't really be too many) and hope again, that tomorrow morning there will not be chickens running rampant in my garden.

I guess I can look at it one of two ways.

1. The chickens are going to ruin the garden, there's no getting around it, or

2. At least I don't have to spend money on a lot of feed for them, and whether it be through meat or eggs, I will eat my tomatoes one way or another!

But regardless of how they're doing it, I need to set up my camera so I can catch them in their morphing or houdini act, seriously, that's really not a bad idea! I'll talk to hubby about it tonight, he loves a challenge!