We Are The Champions

We are the champions, we are the champions, we are the champions...of the world.

While our local school began homecoming celebrations tonight with the crowning of a king and queen and the ritual burning of a “V” (for victory, presumably), I celebrated my own victory by hoisting a guinea fowl in each hand and crowning myself champion of the fowl.

Fall is upon us and for me, that means getting even our most errant birds adjusted to sleeping in the coop...not the trees, not the fence line, not the pens they spent their adolescence in. To survive a SoDak winter, they MUST sleep in the coop at night!

And they have such a nice new coop! Big windows for winter sun and light, natural log perches for comfy feet and tons of room for everyone—3 different, private perch areas! I spent way more thought than was really necessary to make this coop totally rock.

And mostly, the flock adopted their new home well. Even the oldest hens, with the most ingrained habits, needed only a week of lockup to decide this new home suited them fine.

But not so for a few juvenile guinea fowl and pullets. Despite 2 different summer lockup periods, they refused to take the hint and have not only refused to roost in the new coop, they had become increasingly hard to catch. The remaining birds are the most wily, most hardened criminals of the lot.

But tonight was my night. As we drove in the yard, returning from homecoming festivities and feeling the spirit of victory upon us, my headlights showed me the very bad birds were roosting tonight in a very dark corner of the yard.

Dark is key-these guys are usually wise enough to roost somewhere in range of the yard light where I lose my advantage of their poor night vision. But I knew the dark corner they chose would be their doom.

Before even going in the house, I grabbed my chicken bin (yes I have a giant waste can with the express purpose of storing chickens while I catch them, don’t you?) and stalked silently over to where they slept. I had some nerves as I got close-this might be my last, best chance for these turds. If I didn’t get them this time, who knows when I might get another shot like this?

Snatch, grab, snatch and it was all over in seconds-they literally never saw me coming and my bird grabbing skills have become ultra fast this summer—I can grab 3 birds before the first one even wakes up!

And so it was I hoisted my victory guineas in the air and felt the joy of a true poultry catching champion.