Farm From Scratch

A year and a half ago, my boyfriend and I bought a house on four acres in the Columbia Gorge in Oregon.

We had already begun raising chickens and gardening at our rental house on less than one acre, so making the transition to a larger operation seemed logical.

We moved in, but left the chickens behind that first night because we were completely wrecked after starting  moving at 4 a.m. We crashed out early that night. I woke up at like 5:30 the next morning completely stressed about the chickens. (At that point, we had three Rhode Island Reds.)

Something felt off to me. I actually woke up because I "heard" one of them squwaking -- impossible, since they were 20 miles away. I fretted and bit my fingernails until I couldn't stand it anymore. At 9:30, I woke Gordon up.

"We have to go get the chickens!" I said frantically. It had frozen the night before, getting down into the lower 20s, and I had a terrible feeling that the chickens were suffering.

"Okay, okay," Gordon said grumpily. "Let me wake up for a second."

We finally got on the road. Twenty minutes later, we were at the old house. I rushed out to the barn to check on the chickens. They weren't in the coop! The little chicken door we had cut out of the wall was closed.

I ran outside and looked at the outdoor coop area. There they were, all huddled up against the door, shivering. Poor little ladies!

I went back in and opened the door for them and they all came tumbling in to the warmth of the coop, with its heat lamp, warm water and food. I felt terrible.

We had argued over how to transport them, and we had finally settled on a large cardboard box. They might not be the happiest chickens in the world for awhile, but we were traveling in my VW bug and we didn't have a whole lot of options. One by one, we caught them and, against vigorous protesting, shoved them into the box. (We had cut holes in the sides so they had fresh air.)

Happily for them, as soon as they were inside the dark box, they went to sleep. So, we arrived at our new home with our old chickens and a new coop all ready for them. 

Chickens are funny. They have a great sense of direction.

Their new nesting box was against a wall facing west, while the one they were used to faced south. In the morning, we found that they had lain eggs -- in the box opposite the one they had always used.

Please post comments and questions about organic gardening and raising chickens for eggs and meat.

Thanks for reading!