When Nature Attacks!

One of the questions we usually get asked by people after we tell them that we have thus and so number of chickens, turkeys or what have you is "how in the heck did you get all of them? Did you hatch them yourselves?" And the answer is no, we don't hatch them (although Chicken Man did for a while in the past), but we do get them in the mail. This usually draws blank stares.

Seriously. We get them in the mail. Murray McMurray Hatchery sends them to us by USPS the day that they are born, and we get them by day 3. Then the Post Office calls and tells us to pick up this box of little peeping creatures. It's always so cute. They get a huge kick out of it and so do we.

About two weeks ago, we received these little guys over here on the left. Thirty-five little peeping three-day-old pheasant chicks. Here they are in their little shipping box. And a bit lower here's one up close. I hope you can tell the size of these suckers by looking at the one in my hand. (Pay no attention to the terrible fingernails. They needed work and are all better now. Sorry!) They are teeny-tiny but ever so freaking active for their size. I guess that's okay, seeing as how they are a "wild" gamebird and all that. Very tasty, though. Hence, why we have them!

Seeing as how I am the closest one to home, I'm the one that usually gets to get them from Post Office, take them home and out of the box, and make sure they know what water and food look like. It was a hot day, and I sweated off all my makeup doing this. Yuck! I go back to work once they are settled, and go on with the rest of my day.

The Husband decides to leave early so that he can make sure that the little guys are secure in their pen and life is good with them. While I'm still at work, I get a call from him.

"Honey? Who ordered the velociraptors?" he asks me.

It seems that the little buggers had formed a pyramid out of about five of their cohort (one of which was dead - he wasn't doing too well after the shipping anyway) and were in the process of propelling themselves up high enough so that they could leap out of the kiddie pool that they were inside. Aaack! So The Husband spent the first fifteen minutes home chasing the little escapees around the larger pen that they were in and then putting them back in the kiddie pool (after removing the dead one). He then secured them further with chicken mesh around the sides so that if they attempted the same trick, they wouldn't succeed again.

All's well in the pheasant pen. The little buggers are eating and drinking, getting bigger gradually. A few of them die due to natural selection. Then it happens.

Thing One and Thing Two are doing the chores while The Husband and I are inside getting the laundry started. The two of them burst through the door with cries of "Mommy! Daddy! Come lookit!"

Obligingly we come and see this.

Apparently the pen was not secure enough for Mr. King Snake, and he decided that an easy snack was in order. *sigh* Normally I don't mind King Snakes. They eat the sidewinders and Mojave Greens that we have around here. As well as the mice and rats that we can't avoid. They are our friends. That is, until they start eating our freaking livestock! Arrrrgh!

They don't bother the full-grown chickens and ducks, obviously. They're way too big to eat. But little pheasant chicks are apparently just snack size for them.

Needless to say, we are building a snake-proof brooding pen for the little guys this weekend. And we were so looking for some time off. I think I'll make The Husband do most of the work. I'll just hand him the nail and screw guns. I mean, that's why I was a good wife and bought him lots of power tools. He wouldn't want me to get a splinter now, would he?