When Nature Calls

Until recently, we hadn’t assembled our chicken run off the coop. So Jonathan and I had created a makeshift pen in one of our garden boxes. It seemed like a fabulous idea. The girls could get some fresh air, scratch around, and have a little freedom.

The wire on the temporary pen was about two and half feet high and since we’ve clipped the girls’ wings I thought, No problem. I can leave them alone and head inside with Bella. I’ll periodically check on them through the kitchen window.

Bella and I had been inside the house for maybe ten minutes when I glanced outside. In the pen, I saw Tiffany happily pecking at the dirt but Lily was nowhere in sight. My heart lurched. Oh no! Where’d Lily go? That naughty girl hopped the fence!

I made a quick scan of the backyard to find Lily frantically circling her coop. Throwing on my rubber boots, I raced toward Lily. She dodged around the side of the coop and started propelling her body against the wall. Her wings were flapping frantically as she kept thumping into the coop. I couldn’t figure out what this crazy bird was doing!

Then I realized I had shut the coop door. Immediately, I unlatched it and ushered Lily toward the opening. She hopped inside without hesitation.

Wondering what was so urgent, I opened the top of the nest box to see what she was doing. Lily was hunkered down in the straw nest. Then she suddenly released several loud squawks.

That’s when I realized…the poor girl was giving it the old heave hoe. As any woman knows, when its time, its time. Lily needed to lay her egg, and she was determined to do it in her coop. She’s such a dignified hen.

I felt really bad that she had to suffer the trauma of getting into her coop because giving birth to an egg is trauma enough! So that day I told Johnny we’ve got to set up the real chicken run so this doesn’t happen again. And thus, it is now complete. Tiffany and Lily are happy chicks without a worry in the world.

So the moral of the story is this…when you gotta go, you gotta go. You can’t stop nature from running her course.