Our friend down the road, who is always catching me for a chat when I’m walking the dogs, called me on the phone saying she’d done her back and couldn’t look after the chickens at the local pre-school during the holidays, as she’s agreed to do, and could we help.

“We’ll just bring them home to our girls,” says my partner.

…”but we don’t have a box to put them in”

“Don’t be silly, Gail”

So we drive down the road and find our way into the kindy, into the enclosure (which has a roof just above head height for kindy kids) and proceed to run around bent over at that height, eventually catching them both, one each.

I’m imagining the headlines in the local paper, “School Pets Chook-napped.” Fortunately, we managed to keep hold of them as we came back though all the gates and into the car with she who volunteered us displaying her grip, no doubt practiced from controlling toddlers, to keep both chickens, Snowy and Rosie,  on her lap until we got home, at which point I opened all the gates at home right through to the back, ran back to the car, grabbed Snowy so we could both run quickly to the back chicken area, leaving the car open in the street as we had no spare hands…

“Someone will steal my handbag, Gail”

“Don’t be silly, dear.”

So it would be simple if both lots of chickens get on… but no, Thelma the pecking bitch chicken took one look at Snowy and pounced, so there was now a logistical exercise worthy of tetris:

1. PLAN: catch Thelma and evict her from her area until the others go to sleep so she can be put in another area with some straw and camp out… not too cold, not raining. Should be fine.
2. Other chickens go to sleep and are locked in their house.
3. Put Thelma in another area where there is cover and straw.
4. Listen to her crow like a rooster for a fair period of time.
5. SUPPLEMENTARY PLAN: slide door partition across in the middle of one chook house and lock her in one section of the chicken house, but away from the other potential victims who are sleeping, albeit nervously.
6. Watch Thelma peck aggressively at the wooden partition then hop up on the roosting perch.
7. I foolishly think, “Ah she’s given up. She’ll sleep now.”
8. Watch as Thelma launches off the roost, attempting to break through the wooden partition… several repeats.
9. I wonder if she’ll break her neck… several repeats.
10. She eventually roosts, possibly concussed.
11. In the morning I take Thelma out first and lock her in an open area of yard by herself.

It was a long two weeks, but at least Snowy and Rosie settled in well.