Don’t count your chickens. Ever. Seriously.

So I arrived at my folks house yesterday afternoon, fed the dogs and decided that I'd go peak at "your father's 20 damn chickens", as my mother already calls them. (She is an animal lover, honest – but chickens are NOT her favorite critters and I can't say that I blame her.)

Before my dad left on this trip, he told me "you won't need to do anything for them, honest" and then spent the next 15 minutes instructing me on how to refill the water bottles without getting the water on the floor of the coop, how to adjust the lighting, where the chick feed was, and gave VERY specific direction on how to close the door of the coop. The door is warped on the bottom, and these guys … er, "gals" … are so small that they could easily squeeze through and get stuck, or get loose and, at this stage, that'd pretty much mean death.

I walked down the path and approached the hen house. Now these gals spent 21 days as eggs and they've only been out for about 2 weeks at this point, so I knew that they were going to be VERY skittish, that they would travel in a group, and that, because of their size, it would sound as though their "peeps" were coming from every corner once I entered. I looked down at the base of the door, and couldn't help but notice Chick 1 – just sitting there. Outside. I reached down to get her, figuring she was a goner, but she was quite alive and ran from me into a woodpile that would take me about 3 hours to dig through and by the time I got to her, she'd be toast. Ok so note to self – we're at 19 chicks now.

I moved the brick at the base of the door (it was there, just not tight enough, which I guess is how Chick 1 got out), untied the lock, and slowly entered. There was Chick 2 waiting to escape RIGHT at the door, but I moved my hand towards her and she ran like fire, so quickly that she actually threw herself onto her back. And then she got stuck that way – peeping bloody murder, flapping like mad, and so hysterical that she spent a full minute that way before she let me flip her back over. She then went running, full-tilt, into the side wall of the coop, which made her slow down a bit.

You have to know that chickens, especially chicks, are … well, they're kind like a drunken frat boy at his first party with the slutty-sorority house girls - all gut-reaction and NO brain.

So I checked the water, adjusted the light, and spent a moment just checking out the flock. They were pretty cute – some are all black, some have brown heads, and they were all pretty much the same tiny size. In 5 months, they'll be providing eggs to my folks but, for now, their entire job is to just be cute. As I looked them over, I realized that I was doing a count. It took me a minute to move them around and have them far enough apart to get an accurate count - 18.

Which was an odd number for me to get, because I was expecting to get to 19, right? So I again separated the clot of chicks (which caused more anxiety and much peeping) and recounted … 17. Huh. I decided that the sound was prohibiting my ability to count, so I walked back outside to start again, and Chick 1 was sitting by the door. I scooped her up and tossed her inside with very little reaction from her. I think she realized that she'd made a big error in running in the first place.

As I was standing outside, I heard furious peeping … distressed peeping … and I thought that maybe Chick 1, who I just tossed inside, wasn't Chick 1 at all, but maybe Chick 3 and it sounded like Chick 1 was stuck somewhere – on the other side of the coop, outside in the non-chicken world. I walked around the coop, stopping to notice how my dad's grape vines were doing (pretty well, actually), and took a look for Chick 1. No dice. (A reminder that the animal I'm looking for here is about the 2/3rds the size of my fist, and when they're really in trouble, chicks tend to freeze, so this wasn't going be easy.) More distressed peeping, and I wondered if perhaps she hadn't crawled under the coop, which would be a bummer because there really is no way for me to check that, but I walked into the outdoor part of the coop, just in case and again, no chick.

I decided to walk back to the inside part of the coop for a new count. I went inside, and the peeping was overwhelming, and really seemed to be coming from a particular corner. I looked closely and saw that Chick 1 – or maybe Chick 4, I really don't know – was stuck in a small space between the wall and the floor. It would have been a horrible way to die, but there was no good way for me to grab her – her wings were trapped at her sides and her body was pretty stuck, but I carefully pulled at her little head, and the rest of her popped out and she ran to tell the others about how I had just tried to kill her. I went outside, found a good rock, and used it to block up the hole. I turned to the flock and had a firm discussion about how "this wasn't a good place to play", and that I wouldn't be rescuing anyone else so maybe they should stay away from the rock, and everyone seemed to agree that'd be a good move. I separated the flock a bit, and counted, noting that I should be at 19, or maybe even 20 – but I was at 18. Still. I recounted … 18. And I looked over and everyone had forgotten my "don't play by the rock" warning and they were all on top of the rock, or standing right beside the rock, getting ready to be crushed. I put another rock alongside the first, to continue to try to prevent anyone from falling into the hole, after I rescued two more chicks that had fallen into it already.

I did a chick count … 20! Hot damn and halleluiah! I didn't know if it was right or not, but I knew I was not going test fate. I closed up the coop and walked away, shaking my head about my "father's 20 damned chickens".

I guess the phrase we all learned as kids was wrong. It shouldn't be "don't count your chickens before they hatch". It should be … well … see the title of this entry.