Bye Bye, Birdies.

I'm afraid it's true. We no longer have chickens. :-( It all started unraveling about a month ago when Bella was hanging out in the salon while I was doing hair. She looked out the window and said, "Mom, there's a squirrel in the chicken coop! It's so cute!" I thought that was odd, so I looked out the window and it wasn't a squirrel at all. It was a freaking RAT! And it wasn't alone! It had a little rat friend. I was completely freaked out. I was totally distracted from my client and got the heebie jeebies really bad. There are many things I can handle; snakes, spiders, all kinds of things, just not mice and certainly not rats. My client suggested we beat them with the hose. Hee hee. I wasn't going near them, though. I have an irrational fear of rats.

I was so consumed with it all day. I was extremely jumpy. Everytime I saw something in my peripheral vision I would jump. I freaked when my cat walked by. I was a mess. I was so wound up that Bella and Cole started getting a kick out of it. They even teased me. Bella said, "Mom, you should go to sleep and dream about rats in your bed!" Then she said, "You should go to sleep and dream about rats chewing your arm off!" Then she would laugh hysterically. What the heck?! where does she get this?! Mind you, she's 5. Cole just thought it was really funny that I was afraid to go outside and he wasn't. I was exhausted the whole next day from all my worrying.

The next morning I went straight to Cabela's and got myself a bb gun. I also looked for traps, but they only had live ones. Why the heck would I want a live rat? Dumb dumbs.

I get home, get the gun all ready, go outside and stand over their hole. This was not until after I put my rubber boots on...for added safety, you know. I stand over their hole and one starts to come out. This was in the middle of the day! I had seen three in the coop that day! I was ready to shoot to kill. At least I hoped my little bb gun would kill the little creeps. One starts to come out and I take a shot. Not only did I miss the rat, but the bb ricocheted and hit me in the ear! I was feeling really smart right about then and realized this wasn't working. I needed some traps.

Barrett took over from here. I was falling apart... imagining them getting into my house, reproducing, and then taking over the world. I'm pretty sure that's how it works. So he did the trapping. He caught a handful of rats and about a dozen mice. Yup, that's right, MICE. It was then that I realized I could no longer have chickens. As long as I had ckickens thier food would attract rodents.

Once I let Barrett know I was done, he was almost giddy. He was never really fond of the chickens, and didn't really love the rodents. I was actually the one who made the arrangements for them to go to our friends, the Mahoney's. I was really sad about this. It was like admitting failure. I'd also grown quite attatched to the little buggers. I loved seeing them running around the yard. They would come running to see us when we walked outside and one would even hang out on the porch. She would just stand there and wait for us to come out. Oh, and I LOVED the eggs. I get all sad when I buy eggs now.

Just when I was thinking about getting them back and trying again, Barrett was thinking about getting rid of our coop and turning the coop area into a... well, anything but a chicken coop. Before I knew it the coop was gone. At least I know it went to a good home. Our friends the Thompson's are going to turn it into a chicken trailer. I was depressed about it and still get sad when I walk by it, but this is not the end. One day, when I live in the country, or at least some place where the coop isn't 10 feet from my house, I will try again.

All in all it was a great educational experience. I learned a lot about chickens, eggs and of course, rats. Did you know they have a 2 ft. verticle jump, that their front teeth grow about 1/2 in. each year due to all the gnawing they do, their jaws can exert pressures of 24,ooo lbs. they can grind threw concrete and metal and they can squeeze into a 1/2 in. space. Barrett told me I needed to stop researching rats. It was only making matters worse. Anyway, wish me luck for next time. As for now, I still get to see my chickens on occasion and I am enjoying a rat free life.... as far as I know.