Speaking of chickens…

The Husband came home with these 4 little chickens, 2 days old, last year.  I knew nothing about chickens and wasn’t particularly fond of birds in general.  So I’m none too thrilled with these birds in a cardboard box that the 2 year old is going ga ga over.  (Although I have to admit that they were adorable little fuzzy things and it was super cute to see the 2 year old so excited.)  He also has a red lamp.  I ask what it’s for.  He tells me the chickens need to stay warm and need the heat lamp until they are strong enough to live outside.  Huh?  Where are they going to live until then?   I’m the  practical one in the family.  The Husband is the opposite.  “Don’t worry about it” is a very, very common phrase of his with me.  Which is really ironic because he knows I’m going to worry.  Anyway, he tells me the little chickens will be living in the kitchen for 6 weeks.  The kitchen?  Really?  Are you kidding me?  Not like I could think of anywhere else to keep them.  And the 2 year old is completely in love with fuzzy little buggers.  Plus I do tend to be a sucker for animals, so  to the kitchen they went…

They lived in the kitchen in the cardboard box in the kitchen until they started hopping out of that.  So I put them in the dogs x-pen.  At this point they are large enough that they flutter about and get their bird bedding all over the kitchen and breakfast room.  The housekeeper is not happy.  I am not happy.  I tell The Husband that they are too big and too messy for the kitchen and need to go outside.  The Husband, who works probably 80 hours a week and is near brain dead from stress when he comes home every night, tells me he’s going to build a chicken coop.  After I picked myself up off the floor, and after a week or so went by with no coop construction commencing, I remind him we need a coop.  I tell him he needs to buy one.  Which kicks off Coop Shopping.  The Husband researches EVERYTHING to the nth degree.  Literally to the point that I want earplugs because the summary of his findings borders on obsessive.  In any event, after much visiting of chicken coop retailers and pictures of various coops texted back and forth, The Husband buys a coop.