This is the 24th installment in guest contributor Heide Royer’s series about the humorous side of keeping poultry.
A story for my fellow chicken owners:
If you’re reading this, I already know one thing about you. You’ve had a foot race with a chicken and lost miserably. You have logged hours of trying to catch chickens in a timely manner and wasted an inordinate amount of time in your life. You probably do this daily, if not weekly. I KNOW THIS. Each time you actually think you’re going to outrun them, expecting a different outcome, the end result is the same. Chicken: 1; Sad, Pathetic, Slothful Human: 0. This is by definition insanity and we wear it like a warm sweater of lunacy.
There’s always one damn chicken in a flock that gives you the proverbial middle toe every time you think you’re going to put them away early. This same chicken mocks you by screeching and clucking loudly as they sprint past your clunky lunges and meager physical attempts at capture. They silently spit at your feet while revelling in their joy of being the sly chicken a-hole sprinters they are, all the while calling you an overgrown, two-legged, freckled heifer in muck boots.
Rage.
My anger isn’t towards the chicken, albeit I always threaten to send them to bootcamp (with these size 9½s), but with myself because I cannot fathom why I fail miserably every freaking time. My leg length covers sixteen of its nimble, little ninja steps so how in the flippity freaking does it get away from me?
The evening approaches and I know it’s going to be cold, especially for Texas, so I get ready to put birds up early.
I already know the last one I’m going to have to deal with is Scooter.
The smart thing is to get your poultry wrangling recruits, minions, family members, and random strangers to help corner the chicken and force it into its evening headquarters.
I had done just that with the help of my boyfriend and my son, we had this little multicoloured feathered bas*ard surrounded. Giving the order to slowly march inward like I was some chicken Viking shield maiden, arms stretched out in front so no matter what direction he went, he was going to catch some hands, Operation ‘Cock or Crockpot’ was engaged.
Photo credits: Hobby Farms; Norfolk Nags & Ponies; Unknown
Eye contact.
Slow breathing to compose nerves.
A critical pause of movement.
Sh*t, it’s me. I got you. I’m tired and hungry and you’re making me miss 90 Day Fiancé, so I’m not playing!
The last thing I remember was watching him go airborne in true slow motion fashion. I witnessed a violent flapping of wings in the air and sharp, bloody talons (not really, but it’s my story) outstretched like I was about to be whisked off by some cackling, mythological, pissed off, Texas Harpy.
He’s above my head. I’m going to lose him if I don’t jump up – just like this!
I bent down slightly and summoned my old college volleyball jumping abilities (Go Mean Green) and after hearing a slight crick of my sketchy knees, I too was now airborne.
Problem is my vertical was a little bit lacking. In fact, I heard the words “What the f*ck was that?!” come from my boyfriend’s mouth as he watched me jump about two inches in the air to try and snatch this flying demon bird who had already cleared my head by six inches.
And then I landed.
Not gracefully. In fact, pretty certain you could call me Simone Full-of-Biles after that mess.
As my vision cleared, I had a great horizontal view of the ground, a slight taste of grainy dirt and pride in my mouth, and watched from the corner of my eye as this damn chicken zipped off into the woods.
I did what any adult woman would do in that circumstance. I got up, dusted myself off, and tried again.
He££ no, I didn’t.
I laid there and screamed vitriol-infused unpleasantries while making a sad and disgraceful dirt angel with my arms and legs while my son and boyfriend looked on with a combo of sheer terror and amusement, then got up and spent the next thirty minutes trying the same thing.
And every night thereafter.
So Newton was right. An object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion.
Chickens have that figured out.
Thanks again to Heide for sharing her story and photos, used with permission.
If you’ve got a story to share drop me a line using the ‘contact’ button on my homepage.
“Cluck-ups, confessions, and coop catastrophes.”
Bitchin' Chickens 
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