Chooks on the loose

For the past week or so, I've been letting the girls out every afternoon to free-range around the barn. Things progressed beautifully the first several days - the hens were content to scratch and peck around the barn, compost pile, and nearby bushes, without straying much more than 50 feet from the coop. Between our neighbor's property and ours, there is a winding little windbreak of pine trees, small decidious trees and shrubbery. Although the chickens loved scratching around in the pine needles searching for snacks, they seemed to respect the treeline and didn't try to pass through.

Starting a few days ago, they started getting a little more bold - too bold for my liking, actually. Suddenly, chickens could be spotted convening in the side yard (driving the dogs bonkers), feasting on berry bushes in the back woods, and, with much anxious hand-wringing from me, actually taking long, carefree naps under the pine trees, just laying there and looking delicious for any hungry fox or coyote that happened to stroll by. Today, they committed the ultimate chicken faux pas - holding a party on my neighbor's lawn. They decided that the windbreak wasn't such a big scary passage after all, and scampering through the woods into the big, juicy yard on the other side wasn't such a daunting task. It's not like they wouldn't come home at night (they would), but I didn't want them to bother my neighbor in any way in the meantime.

I caught them while they were still on the very edge of their property and mine, and approached, armed with a canister of chicken feed and cracked corn. With embarrassingly loud and frantic calls of "Here, chick chick chickies", that were likely heard resounding throughout the whole Township, I was able to lure them back onto the property, where I promptly shut them up in their run. Tomorrow I'll be calling my neighbor to apologize, and ask for her feelings on the occasional stray chicken showing up in her yard. They won't be free-ranging again until I have fencing put up (I have a split-rail and hotwire combo ready to be installed soon), but I imagine that there will be the occasional escapee now and then.

Incidentally, this is the same wonderful and lovely neighbor who was kind enough to gift us that huge jar of delicious raw honey a couple months ago. Their friendship is important to me, so I'd hate to see the relationship bruised over a couple of vagabond chooks.