My loving wife realized that I needed a break from the routine and asked if I would mind retrieving a flock of Black Copper Marans from Georgia. Jesse Bryant sold his flock to Ruth and as her partner in this adventure, I was nominated to go on a road trip. If you have ever contemplated how to move 40 or so adult birds, there is no obvious choice, except having a Huey pick up a refrigerator size box full of excited chickens and fly them to their new home. For the very experienced and/or practical, I could have bought the custom show trailer that would have almost instantly become a large anthill in the yard after its one time use. Rotating tires on anthills is far too much work and should only be done in leap years.
After looking at airfare into Atlanta and then getting rental vans or moving trucks - yes this is still a chicken story... I elected to run away and hide for a while. After that idea didn't pan out, the next option was to call Enterprise and beg for a reasonable deal on a cargo van and no I didn't mention hauling chickens. Actually, they were very reasonable, so I left yesterday morning and drove to Roanoke, AL for the night. Always be careful to look at the state when booking a room on Orbitz, nearly had to stay in VA, that would have added a lot to the trip.
Arriving at Jesse's house, the Marans were grouped into 5 groups which was perfect planning on my part as I had two dog kennels. And some cardboard boxes.. For anyone still reading, transporting in the dark of a cardboard box is the way to go. Open kennels are more mess, more noise and a lot more smell. Ruth asked me specificially not to let them expire on the way home as she knows I love to eat at Cracker Barrel and would have been reasonably content to let the guys and girls wait in the back of the van while I ate southern health food with sweet tea. As a tribute to the drive-in employees at McDonalds and Wendys, no one asked why roosters were crowing and the inside of my van really smelled bad. Must be trained to ignore that kind of stuff as long as I didn't ask about the meat in my burger or was it lettuce fresh or was the mayo low salt...feed me so I can speed home with my cargo.
I had a lady ask at the Walmart gas station ask what all the noise was in the van and did I have animals in there, was going to give her a fresh egg but she drove off in a hurry. Ok the gist of the story is you can successfully move a flock of chickens in a cargo van, theoretically across any land mass that has Wendys and Walmart. The BCMs seemed thrilled with the new quarters upon arriving here in Woodville, MS. Maybe they are glad to be alive as the more I thought about what I was doing, the faster I drove to get home. As far as I can tell tonight, we have added another facet to the really unusual things that we can tell grandchildren, not necessarily ours as their parents have started driving away in a hurry..
After looking at airfare into Atlanta and then getting rental vans or moving trucks - yes this is still a chicken story... I elected to run away and hide for a while. After that idea didn't pan out, the next option was to call Enterprise and beg for a reasonable deal on a cargo van and no I didn't mention hauling chickens. Actually, they were very reasonable, so I left yesterday morning and drove to Roanoke, AL for the night. Always be careful to look at the state when booking a room on Orbitz, nearly had to stay in VA, that would have added a lot to the trip.
Arriving at Jesse's house, the Marans were grouped into 5 groups which was perfect planning on my part as I had two dog kennels. And some cardboard boxes.. For anyone still reading, transporting in the dark of a cardboard box is the way to go. Open kennels are more mess, more noise and a lot more smell. Ruth asked me specificially not to let them expire on the way home as she knows I love to eat at Cracker Barrel and would have been reasonably content to let the guys and girls wait in the back of the van while I ate southern health food with sweet tea. As a tribute to the drive-in employees at McDonalds and Wendys, no one asked why roosters were crowing and the inside of my van really smelled bad. Must be trained to ignore that kind of stuff as long as I didn't ask about the meat in my burger or was it lettuce fresh or was the mayo low salt...feed me so I can speed home with my cargo.
I had a lady ask at the Walmart gas station ask what all the noise was in the van and did I have animals in there, was going to give her a fresh egg but she drove off in a hurry. Ok the gist of the story is you can successfully move a flock of chickens in a cargo van, theoretically across any land mass that has Wendys and Walmart. The BCMs seemed thrilled with the new quarters upon arriving here in Woodville, MS. Maybe they are glad to be alive as the more I thought about what I was doing, the faster I drove to get home. As far as I can tell tonight, we have added another facet to the really unusual things that we can tell grandchildren, not necessarily ours as their parents have started driving away in a hurry..
