Picking up a live chicken requires a certain amount of intestinal fortitude, intestinal fortitude that everyone in my family lacks.

And yet that doesn’t mean some of us aren’t good with animals. My son Ian is a stellar pet sitter, great with dogs, cats, and Beta fish. He’s especially skilled at caring for ant farms and hermit crabs.  Practically a genius. 

But chickens?  You can count on him to water and feed them. And, with a plastic bag wrapped around his hand, he’ll even pick up their poopy, feather-covered eggs. However, he draws the line at ever actually touching a live chicken, which can be a bit of a handicap when he’s chicken sitting.           

One spring evening, we were about to sit down to dinner when my normally unflappable son came rushing into the kitchen.  Ian said, “The neighbor’s hens are loose and I can’t get them back in the coop.”

Let me mention that we do not live in a chicken-friendly part of town.  Danger lurks behind every corner.  Our first fatality occurred when a free range-ish chicken crossed the road.  Only she didn’t quite make it across before encountering a large motor vehicle.  Close on the heels of that poultry tragedy, a fox snatched another neighbor’s chicken. Later in the spring, an owl swooped into my neighbor’s yard and carried away most of his flock, one by bloody one.   So, you can imagine my son’s anxiety when he couldn’t manage to usher his chicken charges into safety for the night. 

            Undaunted by lack of my agricultural expertise, I decided I’d march over, grab those chickens, and stick them in the coop.  I’d managed three boys’ worth of yucky diapers.  Surely, I could force myself to touch a chicken, for pity’s sake.  How hard could it be?

Very hard.  For one thing, those little beasts don’t stay still. For another, they sport sharp beaks and toenails. I instantly conceded defeat.

A few minutes later, my husband, Bruce, came over with an ancient droopy net on the end of an eight-foot-long handle. My guess is that the contraption had been used to trap baby pterodactyls during the Dinosaur Age.   Bruce had no hope of cornering a skittish chicken since he could barely walk while maneuvering the unwieldy pole.

So, I resorted to what any 21^st century woman would do, I sat down in the middle of the yard, took out my smart phone and googled “How to pick up a chick.”  In retrospect, I should have googled “How to pick up a chicken,” but I was in a hurry.  The search yielded information, some of it R-rated and none of it helpful.

Next, I decided to make use of my smart phone to actually make a call—my Lifeline call, so to speak.  I dialed up my friend, a local chicken-owner.  His son answered saying his dad was off in Florida.  Hmmm…I wondered if the man was taking a break from the strain of his chicken responsibilities.  In desperation, I asked the son, “How do you pick up a chicken?”

The boy sounded incredulous but managed to stay respectful.  “With your hands.”

Well, not my hands.  And from the looks of it, not Ian’s or Bruce’s hands either.  The two of them still were chasing the chickens in ever-widening circles.

Just as Ian was about to pitch a tent and set up guard for the night, a thought struck him, an inspiration arriving directly from his dim memory of the Hansel and Gretel story.  He decided to drop bits of feed from the edge of the yard in a straight line toward the coop.  One by one, those hens followed the food trail into their abode. 

A few days later, when we described the incident to the owner of the chickens (leaving out 95% of the incriminating details), she told us that all we had to do was wait. If you gave them time, those chickens always wandered back to the coop on their own.  Who knew?