Chickens Are Stupid--Part Two

See Part One here.

Onward with Part Two . . .

Just another routine chore, shutting in the chickens for the night and checking for eggs in the nesting box . . . Except all was not as it should be in the chicken coop last night, for Penny the hen had managed to get her fool self wedged in between the chicken wire and the outside plywood wall. There's about a four-inch gap at the bottom of the plywood, which I assume is how she got in her predicament to begin with. She must've managed some pretty impressive chicken contortions to do so, but there she was: Stuck and no way to free herself.

So I ran back to the house, searching through the shop for one of the three wire snipping tools we own. And of course, I couldn't find any of them. I eventually found a sort-of useful pair of pliers that sort of snipped the wire, with much effort and twisting and swearing. Meanwhile, Penny was flapping uselessly and squawking her head off, with the rest of the chickens joining in from their nighttime perch.

Four squawking chickens are surprisingly loud in an enclosed space. Plus, I was sure the rooster was going to hop down from the perch at any time and spur me for threatening one of his girlfriends. It was not a pleasant scene in there, is what I'm getting at.

Eventually, I gave up on snipping the chicken wire and instead ripped out the nails securing it to the plywood with brute force, thereby freeing idiotic Penny. She ran immediately to the food dispenser, leading me to believe she had been trapped for some time. The other chickens got off their roost to investigate and I beat a quick retreat from the coop, clutching the egg I went in there to get in the first place.

At least it's never dull around here.