THE GREAT CHICKEN REBELLION OF 2020 PT. 5  

 

      Again, I went to the bargaining table, and again I made a reasonable offer. If the chickens would just start to lay again, I would allow them to use a large plastic store bought bin built for storing a pair of small garbage cans as their new laying site. It was sitting unused in the poultry yard where it had once unsuccessfully housed bales of straw and once acted as a nursery for a mother Muscovy duck and her two sons, so why not let them have it? I lined the floor with straw, opened the double doors wide and waited for the chickens to come filing in. It didn’t happen. I even tried capturing a hen or two and putting them in the bin so they could see for themselves what a great place this was. Why, it was practically as good as snuggling in behind the bales of hay and straw! They refused to be convinced that anything could replace what had been taken and turned their collective beaks up at it.

     I was certain my business was doomed, and I was all to blame. If I would have just left well enough alone and not installed those idiotic nests, maybe those who were laying in the bales would have migrated to the doghouse. As it was, I had to drag the unused doghouse out of the poultry house once again while thinking dark thoughts about terrible ideas and ungrateful birds. I lamented my stupidity to my long suffering sister and wondered aloud if I was being punished for my silent laughter when it was revealed to me that a nearby egg business that had been the subject of much boasting wasn’t really doing so well. Was this what I got for being human and finding amusement in bravado gone bad? Oh, I could not believe this! What a terrible penance if this was true.  Still, I had yet to give up.