Straight Jackets for Your Chickens

 It was her or me and I wasn't going down with out a fight!

Chickens are stupid. Yes, I said it and if you have ever had chickens you know it is true. Don't get me wrong, I love having chickens,they are tasty. Plus they're also fun to watch, have cute babies, eat the bugs and ticks and make fertilizer.That chicken poop can grow some big tomatoes! But they are still some of the dumbest critters The Good Lord ever made. In my experience if  they start a bad habit to get them to stop it is difficult. Sometimes penning them up so they can not do their bad habit for a few days will erase it from their tiny chicken brains, sometimes not.  You all may be sensing a story here and you all would be right. Sadly, this is a true story.
I have this one very pretty little hen, she is a black and white bannie with a little bit of Polish chicken thrown in the mix. Basically a bannie with a top knot! She decided she would fly over the fence ever day upon leaving the coop into Mr.Tumnus' yard and stay there despite me clipping her wing. So I started leaving her in there a night with another wild chicken. Now, if this had been before the Great Coon Thinning of the last Spring they would have been a midnight buffet the first night. Well ...they have been roosting out there all summer and fall till a few nights ago and I woke up to chicken screams for help..yes,chickens sound like they are screaming "Help" when something starts eating on them and I can't say that I blame them for it either! Anyways,I jump out of bed and wake a very confused Hubby and 2 middle age people  bumble around like Stooges looking for shoes and shot guns! It turns out not to be a coon but an owl and it has gotten the wild chicken. Of course we just watched the owl fly away.  Now I am particularly fond of the surviving hen despite her above average chicken dumbness. Mainly because she is unique and pretty. So every evening I have been lumbering my middleage, out of shape..joints a poppin',  asthmatic self out there and catch up Little Miss Dumb-Dumb and put her in the coop where first thing the next morning she walks right over the scratch I throw out and to the fence and flies her clipped wing self right over. You would thing that seeing her friend as a late night snack for an owl would have made her want to avoid that area all together. I will say it again...Chickens are stupid. Well...the first night or two she was easy to catch ...after that Little Miss Dumb-Dumb wised up. I know,surprising!  Last night after a hearty game of round and round the goat pen I had had it! Wheezing, out of breath and joints a poppin' I called The Boy to come and help me. When I got my hands on Little Miss Dumb-Dumb I carried her to the shed and got some of that blue painters tape that comes off easy and taped her one wing to her chest! Yes,you heard me! I taped my chickens wing to her chest! But by golly, I had had enough and desperate  times call for desperate measures! The Boy thought it was hilarious, making comments like,"You Might be a Redneck if you make a straight jacket for your chicken out of duct tape!""
 
But you know what? Little Miss Dumb-Dumb is still in the chicken yard! Who's smarter now!!!!

 Yes I did it ! I made a crazy chicken straight jacket out of tape and I am not ashamed!!!! I will take her straight jacket off in a few days if it does not fall off on its own.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this story..well..except the one eaten by the owl.