Mother Hen

Most mother hens have 2 legs, but our little mother hen comes with 4. Our 14-year-old yorkie-poo, Sophie, has been obsessed with chickens since our original foray and all these years later her interest has not diminished.

Now I should point out that Sophie is our household octogenarian (in dog years of course), even though her hearing and seeing skills have faded her spunk and excitement for our chickens has not. Especially during the time while the chicks spent the first few weeks of their lives in the house. She would storm into the room whenever she thought the other dogs (or us humans) were getting too close for her comfort to protect her babies. She also, wouldn’t take her eyes off the chicks when cleaning out their space every evening (which you know, as the person who was cleaning that space really appreciated having another living thing in the way to work around).

One evening in particular, while cleaning out the chicks space, the chicks were moved to a smaller box. During this time Sophie usually would insert her face inside the holding box to keep an eye on her babies. But this particular evening she had some serious gusto and decided to leap her small, very round and plump frame into the holding box with the 19 awkward looking chickens.

How did the chicks react you ask? Well, simply CHAOTICALLY! Of course, these bitty creatures were terrified of this 14 pound monster entering their space. Sure they don’t know that she hardly has any teeth and she’s absolutely zero threat to them (well unless maybe she were to sit on them). So of course they reacted as they should. They all sprang into survival mode, with box desertion as their main goal. A few managed to fly out and escape while the rest traumatically tried to make their escape.

My troop and I sprung into action, first by removing Sophie from the box. My oldest was put in charge of ensuring the rest of the chickens stayed put, while I utilized my mad chicken catching skills towards the chicks that were on the run. But who knew keeping baby chicks in a box was so difficult? Apparently even more difficult than catching multiple baby chickens on the loose inside your house, while making sure they didn’t get trampled on by any other kids or dogs. From his firsthand account, that entire time was a dramatic slow-mo version of him being slain by these treacherous baby chicks, peck after peck. I know they were scared and quick to peck, but I don’t think it was quite THAT dramatic…

But anyways, we were able to catch the loose chicks and get them all back into their normal space (which remained clean for approximately 10 seconds). They remained stressed and on high alert for a few hours later, but eventually they forgot about their traumatic experience from their mother hen. In the weeks that followed, Sophie was not a fan of her babies being moved outside. But don’t worry readers, she receives a daily face-to-face visit inside their coop and pen where she checks on all of them and they reluctantly have gotten used to it, but a little old lady’s needs should be appeased, especially once you’re 100+ in dog years.

Until next time. – BB