Backyard chickens

By Carl Gadow

Minnesotans don’t look on the bright side.

“A yacht would be great,” someone might say, “but where would I store it? Lake Minnetonka is an hour away—without traffic.”

Or: “Yeah, I won the lottery, but now I’m going to have to pay more taxes. It’ll probably push me into a higher tax bracket.”

I come by this instinct for practical realism honestly. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression, and some of the habits they learned seem to have been passed down to me... like a family inheritance.

Sometimes that inheritance shows up in odd places—like the collection of chicken coop parts, spare fence posts, and random pieces of lumber stacked behind the shed in my backyard. The shed has become a sort of holding area for things that might still be useful someday.

Our backyard chickens were great. For a while.

When we brought home Blue, Twenty-Two, and M, we lost two of them almost immediately.

Apparently, chickens can actually fly. Especially when confronted by barking dogs and an open-roof chicken run.

Blue must have thought her name meant she could camouflage herself like a chameleon, because she spent most of the time cowering in the corner looking more like a terrified chicken than part of the wood chips and straw.

Twenty-two barely left the area, but M was a wily one. Our grandchild, Mason, named the birds after his favorite color, favorite number, and of course himself so if we lost M, it would be almost like losing Mason himself – only with the report going to PETA and not Child Protective Services.

After some creative chicken wrangling involving Mason and a couple of helpful—but hungry—dogs, the chickens were eventually back in the covered pen. That arrangement lasted about a year and a half.

The girls were very reliable. Three eggs. Every day. All summer. We had eggs everywhere. It started to look like Easter around our house. The grandkids began showing up expecting an Easter egg hunt.

When fall rolled around, I had to start thinking about how to keep the chickens alive through what was predicted to be the coldest winter in years. An extension cord and a heated water dish saved the day. The chickens survived the winter. I almost didn’t.

Some mornings it felt like I was keeping them around just so I didn’t disappoint Mason. The daily trek through knee deep snow in my winter boots to feed and water them started to wear on me. By the time the next winter approached, I was ready for the chickens to be re-homed.

The coop eventually came down. The run and roof were broken into pieces small enough to disappear into the garbage over time. But I couldn’t bring myself to throw everything away. The screen panels were just too useful looking. I figured someday I might use them to protect the garden—or at least a few plants—from the terroristic squirrels and rabbits.

Throwing them away never seemed like an option.

The panels are still leaning behind the shed.

Some instincts are harder to get rid of than chickens.