So . . . last month, one late afternoon, I stepped into one of my big chicken coops to refill their water. There’s a little white bantam rooster in there who loves to attack me, and while I was busy with the water and keeping an eye on him, one of my hens slipped out of the coop. This would not be a big deal except that Jazzy, one of the mastiffs, was outside with me, and a couple of years ago she LOVED chasing chickens. She hasn’t chased much of anything since her ACL surgery, so I was hoping I could catch the hen–Nadia–before Jazzy saw her.
But Nadia didn’t want to be caught. She was having a ball, running around pecking at the ground, and managed to sidestep me every time I came near. And then–you guessed it, Jazzy saw her and started chasing. Poor Nadia was flapping and running and I was screaming and–well, thankfully Nadia disappeared. My coop sits on a wooden foundation, so I figured Nadia had gone underneath it.
So I put Jazzy in the house (she was tired by then!) and went outside to look for Nadia. The best way to find them is just to sit quietly and jiggle the bag of dried worms, so I tried that near the coop, but she wouldn’t come out. I was getting worried–I had to leave soon, and the sun would set, and we have all kinds of predators in our area. My hubby came out and looked, too, and I even got my flashlight and peered under the wooden foundation. No Nadia.
Hubby prayed for the missing chicken, and so did I. And then I had an idea–I let ALL of the other seven chickens out and sat with them. They were having a ball, scratching and pecking, and I kept counting heads. Seven. Seven. Seven. Eight!
I counted again. Eight chickens! One of them wandered back into the coop, and I noticed she was panting. Nadia.
There’s gotta be a moral to this story–maybe it’s that when the devil chases you, you’d better get back to your flock because they’ll see you home. After that, it was easy to toss worms into the chicken run, and all of them–eight–went back inside and I locked the door.
And last night at synagogue, during the time for praise reports, I said, “God has his eye on the sparrow . . . but also on the chicken! ” . And on YOU, never doubt it.
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Amy M. says
That innocent looking face doesn’t look like a chicken chaser at all!
Angie says
LOL! Looks can be deceiving!
Becky Wade says
Such a sweet story! That has me smiling. 🙂
Angie says
Glad I could brighten your day. 🥰