Messin' With Hick's Flock

It's no secret that my little Pony is an egg collector. Not a connoisseur of fine Faberge eggs. Not a hoarder of hen fruit. He's the guy who goes out each evening to look under chickens' butts for eggs. This has been his job since Hick bought his first two hens and a rooster. We won't discuss the unfortunate massacre that ensued at this juncture.

Even though he is now fourteen, The Pony grabs his little red-and-green wicker Easter basket and skips over to the chicken pen, twirling it on his wrist. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'm glad we live in the country. No good can come of his classmates getting a glimpse of this side of The Pony. His job has grown more challenging, now that the fowl roam at will about the grounds, dropping eggs as the mood strikes. That's only possible because our dogs have been aversion-trained to not eat the chickens. We won't discuss Hick's questionable canine-training methods at this juncture.

In spring and early summer, The Pony sometimes found fourteen eggs a day. Those were the salad days, my friends. The egg salad days. A stealthy spoiled neighbor dog put an end to that bounty. He siphoned off several of our layers. Witnesses reported that he carried the lifeless bodies home. His owners put up a skeptical front when interrogated. We won't discuss the across-the-road feud at this juncture.

In recent weeks, The Pony has been gathering two eggs per day. Sherlock Hick has deduced that my favorite rescue doggie is eating his eggs. Never mind that I have seen our older rescue dog carry two in her mouth, eat one, then eat the other as MY favorite rescue doggie licks the remains out of the cracked shell. Sherlock Hick presents, as Exhibit A, the fact that he gathered eggs himself on Saturday, laid them on top of the large garbage can that holds chicken feed, and found them missing when he returned an hour later. We won't discuss the issuer of Sherlock Hick's law license at this juncture.

On Monday, The Pony charged into the kitchen waving his basket. "I found one egg, and A GOLF BALL!" Which he had carried into the house in the egg basket. Like Hick was going to crack it and eat it. Or put it in a carton with the eggs he sells to a gal at work. The Pony was flabbergasted with his find. "I don't know HOW a GOLF BALL got into the chicken nest!" We won't discuss The Pony's sorry knowledge of chicken anatomy at this juncture.

I suggested that, perhaps, Hick had put it there to make the chickens more inclined to lay in the nest. The Pony allowed that he had heard of putting a plastic Easter egg in the nest to elicit laying. But not a golf ball. He did, however, grudgingly return the Titleist to the nest, with a promise to ask Hick if he had planted it. We won't discuss the naughty faux pas of spelling "Titleist" without the "e" at this juncture.

Yesterday, I asked The Pony if he had talked to Hick about the golf ball. "No. But don't worry. I put it back out there in the chicken coop. I put it in a different nest, though." I have no idea what possessed The Pony to mess with the chickens. He'd be safer messin' with Sasquatch over some Jack Links Beef Jerky. These little peckers don't take kindly to a hand ruffling their underfeathers in search of an egg. The roosters don't take kindly to anybody male invading their territory. We won't discuss what happens to roosters who challenge Hick at this juncture.

Imagine, if you will, our poor Ameraucana layers, no slouch in the colored egg department, discovering a golf ball in the nest where they deposit their pastel greeny bluey eggs. "Oh, dear. What's this white dimpled thing? I should not be pleased to observe the misbegotten embryo that would hatch from such an ugly case." So to think they have gotten rid of the golf ball, then to find it popping up one nest over, is not going to set well with the setter. We won't discuss what might happen if Hick's chickens start laying a rainbow of miniature-golf-suitable, dimpled, spherical eggs at this juncture.

Somewhere, Hick is happily puttering around his BARn, singing under his breath. "Oh...I had a little chicken and she wouldn't lay an egg, so I put an old golf ball between her legs..."