pet connection

“A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.” – Groucho Marx

Looks as if Brian the neighborly contractor will be figuring out the poultry netting after all, but not until I give it one more try.

Yes, the poultry netting is easy. Yes, the instructions are clear. No, I shouldn’t be having any problems. But … I’m about as handy as a duck-billed platypus.  And maybe not even that much.

The good news is: I overcame my fear of wiring, electricity and shock. I ran a grounding wire. I zip-tied all the wires neatly out of the way. I spliced. I wire-nutted.  Frankly, I have this damn poultry net totally wired.

The bad news is: It doesn’t work. I know it’s arcing somewhere, because I can hear the clicking when I walk down the fence line. I just can’t figure out where the problem is.

I ended yesterday with a desire to kill myself by throwing my body into the poultry netting. Except: 1) It wasn’t working; and 2) Even if it were, it wouldn’t kill me, since it’s just not that powerful.

Instead, I made a gin and tonic and called it a night.

This morning I skipped the fence dilemma and worked on the chicken area. I spread fresh corn, dried corn and crushed oyster shells around the yard, and then split a bale of hay over the area so they’d have to dig for the goodies. Cleaned out the laying boxes and put fresh hay in them. Reorganized some of the roosting poles because the babies aren’t so little anymore and everyone needs some room.

Then I clipped the feathers on the right wings of all the chickens so they can’t get any lift to get over the two layers of fencing — chain link and netting — that stand between them and the dogs.

That netting will by electrified someday soon — as God is my witness — but having a chicken fly over it into the dog area will negate all the effort I’ve put into getting it to work.

The chickens didn’t much like the wing-clipping, but they seemed to like the re-organized yard: By noon I had five fresh eggs.  Seems like they’re rewarding me for all my efforts on their behalf.

I asked Woody to carry one of the eggs into the house. I wanted to see if he’d do it without breaking it or trying to eat it. He is such a good boy! He carried it gently, sat next to me in the kitchen and pushed the egg into my hand with his tongue when I said, “Give.”

He’s getting that egg for dinner. It’s completely undamaged, but I’m not that keen on the dog-spit, so I figure he deserves it.

Image: Woody will hold anything you ask him to. He is such a sweet, sweet boy.