Barn Cleaning Fun Run

[chickrunfun]

OK so I had this need to spend time with my teen chickens this morning. Quality time, you know?
Their hen house is basically a barn in micro-fashion. 8 x 5 x 12 center height with a mini loft. We even painted it red and we store their hay bales in there with them along with feed buckets, D.E. can, and all the other whatnots.
So last night we had rain...again. (welcome to sunny South Florida, right?) and I'm in there checking on if any hay got leaked on and I move a bale and out pops this cockroach. BIG son of a sailor, too! He took a few runs to the buffet line, foshur! My trusty sidekick, Marlin, dives passed me and nailed him quick and off we were, him and me, moving things around and on the hunt for infiltrating roaches. What fun! Marlin's always been a butinski. Can't do anything with him around, he'll be underfoot or pitchfork, guaranteed.
That's all. Not really interesting I suppose but we had fun, cleaning the barn. Just wanted to share that maybe if any yall got a barn or hen house big enough for you to roam in, this would be a fun thing to do with your chickens. Yeah...weird. I know, but cheap entertainment.

 

[Teila]

Howdy chickrunfun .. thank you for sharing, I enjoyed your post.

I just mentioned to Hubby the other day that Blondie’s [one of my little banties] demise is going to be the garden fork

Each afternoon when they are let out for supervised free range I turn over the dirt in their favourite places so that it keeps loose and easy for bug hunting. Everyone else is fairly patient and stays out of reach of the fork; not Blondie, I have to be so careful not to injure her with it as she insists of being right in front of it when I push.

They sure do 'pounce first – ask questions later' on pretty much anything that moves

 

[chickrunfun]

I KNOW! We have a compost pile in their yard area and every night before they file into the house I re-plie it, and they get right in there! So in the way you have to move in super slow motion so you don't get them with the pitch fork. Does Blondie take it one step further and get "chicken rides - 2 for $1" and jump onto the pitch fork soon as you get it set in the dirt? ALL my brats, I mean chickens teens do that. Mostly Marlin the Buff...butinski of all things

 

[Teila]

Tee hee chickrunfun no, she does not go as far as riding on the fork but the broom is fair game and is quite often pounced on and pecked to death.

We have an enclosed compost bin [with air holes] which doubles as a chicken treat dispenser .. many hours are spent waiting patiently for a bug of some description to poke it’s head out of one of the air holes at which time it is history.

If I take one of the small doors off to extract some compost I instantly have 6 little helpers