One Reason Not to Free Range Your Chickens

I’ll admit – the title of this blog is deceiving.  It is really more of a funny story about our boys than about free ranging chickens, but it does relate to the title if you hang in there until the end.
 
If you haven’t met our boys, we have 3 boys that I refer to on my blog by initials – AJ (5), CJ (4), & JJ (2).  They have been described by various people as “all boy.”  I’m never quite sure if that’s a compliment, but I take it as one.  They were being “all boy” on a day last week…
 
AJ and CJ were playing outside on one of the beautiful fall afternoons.  JJ and little sister MJ were napping, and I was working inside the house.  I always keep my “mom radar” on when the boys are outside.  Usually a window is open somewhere so I can hear them, and I frequently look out the windows to see what is going on. 
 
My mom radar picked up that they were playing with the chickens.  Our chickens have a fenced in area, but in the late afternoon, we open up the coop door and let them free range.  We have several reasons for doing it this way, but that’s a topic for another post. 
 
At first, they were just catching the chickens and putting them under a crate.  No chickens were being harmed, and they were having a delightful time.
 
As time progressed, my mom radar sensed that the delight level was increasing.  Before I had time to investigate, a breathless and excited CJ burst in the door saying, “Mommy, Mommy, come look!”
 
Now, I should’ve taken a picture, but I didn’t.  I’ll try to paint the picture the best I can.
 
Two boys, one stroller, one chicken, one wild ride.  The chicken was hunkered down in the stroller – its simple world of eating, drinking, and egg laying totally shattered by this new experience.  Indeed, the chicken was actually strapped into the stroller (for safety reasons, I assume) as it was pushed around our driveway at breakneck speed.  The boys were all smiles about their new idea of giving chickens rides in the stroller.  Feeling sorry for the chicken and worrying how long this “trauma” would prevent it from laying an egg again, I calmly suggested that they go back to catching and trapping the chickens rather than providing entertaining rides for them.
 
So, in case you’re considering free ranging your chickens and you have little boys around, beware that you never know what they might do!