Keep On Crowing Epilogue

Yesterday afternoon I pulled into the driveway just after sunset.  I was all relaxed now that the chicken business was taken care of.  A relaxed feeling can turn on a dime and my feeling of being relaxed completely changed into anxiety.  I made a mistake.  In my proud feeling of success at carrying a vibrating box of roosters into the car I neglected to shut the top of the chicken run. I came home to see one Cuckoo Maran perched on the run but on the outside.  Crap!  How many chickens was I missing?  I grab a flashlight and open the egg door on the coop.  Three Americaunas are cuddled up with Chickenson Caruso. I lift the Cuckoo Maran and put her inside the coop.  Now, how many chickens am I missing?  With the three loud and proud Polish roosters parading about it was hard to count them all.  I know I had at least one more.  I pull out my Daniel Boone skills.  I see chicken tracks and chicken deposits on the snow.  One chicken walked south and east but it looks like it went back the way it came.  Another chicken walked west and into the driveway.  Because the driveway has been plowed I can't tell where it went.  I look up. Usually my chickens perch high.  I look on top of the woodpile.  No chickens there.  I look on the deck railing.  No chickens there.  I look on the roof and in the tree branches and everywhere around.  I see no chickens.  I don't think there is any more I can do tonight so I go to bed and worry.  In the night it comes to me that I am missing only one chicken.  When morning comes I go to the deck and look outside.  There she is.  This girl was out all night and came home in the morning.  Oh, the walk of shame.  She is wearing the same feathers she left in yesterday.  She came home and she's pacing back and forth outside the run looking for an opening in the fence to come home.  I go out there and open the top of the run thinking she will remember how she got out.  She doesn't remember.  Sending my presence the other chickens come out to the run.  She gets excited to see them all and it seems she thinks that if she keeps walking back and forth eventually an opening in the fence will appear.  I am patient. I know, from experience, there is no hope in catching a freaked out chicken.  I encourage her to go around to the door and I would open the door for her.  No dice.  She ducks under the coop.  Oh, is that where she spent the night?  Her tail doesn't fit under the coop and that is what I grab to lift her and put her in the pen. Gosh, it sure is nice to have all the hens together.  My coop is made for five to six chickens and six chickens fit much better than nine.  There is no end to drama when you are a chicken owner.