This title of the children's book, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day," kept running through my mind a few weeks ago. I had gone to the farm to babysit my grandchildren while Wonder Woman slept, as she had worked the night before.
It started out as a beautiful day and so good seeing the kiddos and all the baby chicks. I was amazed at how fast those baby chicks were growing. Wonder Woman had told me that she was putting the baby chicks out in the pen, by the house, during the day. So I decided we would do that. The kids helped me take the 20 chicks to the pen and we enjoyed watching them run around. I had brought my dog, Mercy, along with me. She loves to play with their dog Macy. I had the dogs in the pen with me, trying to get them use to the chicks. Our hope was to free range them during the day so these dogs needed to see that they were to get along with them. And both dogs acted just fine and really didn't seem to pay much attention to them.
Now I am sure you are starting to get the idea of where this is going...and if you have, you are right.
I went inside and had the dogs come in with me as I wasn't ready to trust them yet. Then I got this great idea that I would help Wonder Woman by cleaning out their guinea pig cages. So I proceeded to start hauling them out. Well...out the door I went with the first cage and the dogs followed me. I then ran back in to get the others (3 in all) and back outside I went. I started to clean out one of the cages when my eye caught the sight of the dogs (mind you, I had shut the gate to the pen and even put a brick in front of it) inside it. And they were running around killing the chicks!!! I started screaming and running trying to stop this death bath! I can't even explain what a horrible sight it was!! Then the children came out and everyone started screaming and crying! OH MY!!! I was only able to save 3 out of the 20...Yep 3! I was so sick about it.
Amariah wanted me to take a picture of some of them.
We all had a good cry. The dogs got in so much trouble, they ran away and hid behind the house for several hours. I found a shovel and we had a burial for the chicks. Then I texted my Bearded Son about what had happened. I asked what I could do to the dogs so they wouldn't kill chickens. He said he had heard that tying the dead chickens around their necks made them not want to do it again. So you guessed it, I dug back up 4 of the chicks and we found some rope and tied them around the dog's neck. Of course, we had to go find them, since they were in hiding. I dragged them out with the tails between their legs and tied the chicks around their necks. And then the strangest thing happened! They got so happy and excited with their new necklaces. They started prancing around with smiles on their faces and smelling each other's necklace as if this was super cool. Okay, that was not the reaction I was looking for so I got on Google to see what people had to say about doing this. The majority said it really didn't work and one said that you had to leave the dead chicks on them for days so they get really rotten and smelly. Well, knowing Mercy loves to roll in dead carcasses, didn't have me thinking she would mind the rotten smell. Plus, there was no way she was going home with me with dead chicks around her neck. So I took them off and reburied the chicks.
Hard to see, since I color coordinated with black chicks on Macy and golden chicks on Mercy! But see their smiles!
You would think that would be it for the day, but NO... Within minutes of finishing up, one of the kids started screaming that there was a BIG snake! So I ran over and sure enough there was this big snake curled up near the barn. I started shouting for everyone to get back. And from a good LONG distance, we all stood and stared at it. I really wanted that thing to get moving away from us so I started throwing rocks at it. Now, I am a terrible aim and after each throw the snake never moved. I finally got a good throw, remember we were a long distance from it, and I hit it. And it didn't move! So I am thinking, 'I think it's dead.' So I cautiously crept towards it with shovel in hand, and with great relief, discovered it was dead. It had a number of wounds on it, so maybe the dogs did something right and killed it. I would have loved to praise them for the snake kill but how to teach them what is acceptable to kill? So we had another burial.
Another blog is to follow about the next day and it will have such a better title. And a hint...the critters on the farm are multiplying.
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