Our Chicken Little Experience

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

It was sometime around 2008 and our son, Billy, and his family lived on 5-acres in rural Orange City, where they had started keeping chickens for the eggs.  Every once in a while they would get overstocked with eggs, and we would be the lucky recipients.    Billy had gone to great lengths to protect his chickens with a nesting shelter and a chicken coop, but over the years his flock had been diminished by foxes and the occasional bobcat.

At the time of this story he only had two of the Road Island Red chickens left.  They wanted to go on vacation, but he was afraid that if he let the chickens run free, a fox was sure to get them.  So he asked DiVoran and me if we would keep them for the 2-weeks they would be gone.  He assured us that they were well-mannered and would be no trouble.  We said, “Sure” since our backyard was fenced and backed onto a wildlife area (no neighbors to bother).  Billy brought over a nice “portable” coop for the chickens to sleep in, and we set it up over papers, with food and water on our screened back porch. Every morning we would let them out into our backyard, with food and water, and they pretty much took care of themselves.  They did a dandy job of free “Pest Control” in our back-yard.  We were glad for that, but I’m not sure how happy the birds were about it.

Now this is the amazing part of the story.  Every evening around dusk, the two chickens would let us know it was time for them to go to bed.  They would jump up on our kitchen window sill and peck on the window.  I kid you not!  Just so you would believe me when I told you this story, I took this picture of them on our kitchen window sill looking in.

DiVoran and I took turns going out and picking them up off the window sill, and carrying them in and putting them in their coop.  They didn’t seem to mind being picked up or handled.  They didn’t try to struggle or fly away.  They would just let us pick them up and carry them to their coop.  We would give them more food and water, and place a blanket over the coop.  They were quiet and happy all night. 

We enjoyed watching them scratch around the yard as if it was a new area to investigate every day.  We also had a good time each day looking for the day’s cache of eggs.  It was like a daily Easter Egg Hunt.  It was quite a challenge since they never seemed to lay them in the same place two days in a row.  It was a fun short-term experience, but DiVoran and I both agree we wouldn’t want to do it as a living or even as a hobby.

–—-The End—–

Bill is a retired Mechanical engineer living with his wonderful artist/writer wife, DiVoran, of 61 years in Titusville, Florida. He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended Northrop University in Southern California and ended up working on America’s Manned Space Program for 35 years. He currently is retired and spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes, traveling, writing blogs about his travels for Word Press and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing, editing and marketing.  He also volunteers with a local church Car Care Ministry and as a tour guide at the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum there in Titusville.  Bill has two wonderful children, two outstanding grandchildren, and a loving sister and her husband, all of whom also live in Central Florida, so he and DiVoran are rewarded by having family close to spend lots of quality time with.

One of Bill’s favorite Scriptures is:  John 10:10

Tags: Chicken sitting, Raising chickens