I was reading another person's post and recalled the time that I was helping clean up the small house on this farm for its next residents.
Well... I had just gotten my first 12 free-ranging hens and didn't think much about it. It was summer, and so the doors were wide open while the cleaners and painters walked in and out of the house all day. Later, when I shut the chicken coop door for the night, I couldn't figure out why there were only 10 hens. I looked and looked around and wondered if they had been attacked by a fox or so.
For 2 days (it was the weekend), I couldn't figure out what had happened to those hens!! Well, it turns out, they had been locked into the "newly cleaned and painted" house. Oh my goodness!! When I got the phone call, I went and looked in the house, and those chickens had been having a major hen party!!
They had climbed up and down the stairs to both floors and had pooped and scratched EVERYWHERE!! They decided to roost on the edge of the brand new marble sink and also upstairs on a newly painted banister rail!! (We knew cuz of where the most poop was). They had pooped in every single room of the house, on every carpet and painted surface and new linoleum with no closet left unturned. They had pecked and scratched everywhere. The funniest part was they had flown up to the new kitchen counter where there was a large thick slab of blue insulation foam laying. They had pecked out a chicken-sized "bowl-shape in the middle of the insulation slab and had laid several eggs in it.
Needless to say I spent an extra day scrubbing and cleaning up all that mess. It's funny NOW, but it was only a little bit funny at the time. I kept picturing the hen party inside with an occasional hen peering out a window, trying desperatley to get someone's attention to let them out!
Can anyone top this?!
Well... I had just gotten my first 12 free-ranging hens and didn't think much about it. It was summer, and so the doors were wide open while the cleaners and painters walked in and out of the house all day. Later, when I shut the chicken coop door for the night, I couldn't figure out why there were only 10 hens. I looked and looked around and wondered if they had been attacked by a fox or so.
For 2 days (it was the weekend), I couldn't figure out what had happened to those hens!! Well, it turns out, they had been locked into the "newly cleaned and painted" house. Oh my goodness!! When I got the phone call, I went and looked in the house, and those chickens had been having a major hen party!!
They had climbed up and down the stairs to both floors and had pooped and scratched EVERYWHERE!! They decided to roost on the edge of the brand new marble sink and also upstairs on a newly painted banister rail!! (We knew cuz of where the most poop was). They had pooped in every single room of the house, on every carpet and painted surface and new linoleum with no closet left unturned. They had pecked and scratched everywhere. The funniest part was they had flown up to the new kitchen counter where there was a large thick slab of blue insulation foam laying. They had pecked out a chicken-sized "bowl-shape in the middle of the insulation slab and had laid several eggs in it.
Needless to say I spent an extra day scrubbing and cleaning up all that mess. It's funny NOW, but it was only a little bit funny at the time. I kept picturing the hen party inside with an occasional hen peering out a window, trying desperatley to get someone's attention to let them out!
Can anyone top this?!
Last edited:
