I Get NO Respect From the Chickens!

I can already tell it's going to be one of those days. It all started last night. For the second night in a row, Dustin told me we were missing a chicken when he locked them in the coop. This is because they've discovered that they can get into the back pasture via the goat pen, but then they're on the wrong side of the chain link fence, peering in at all their little chicken buddies. So, they commence to walk the fence line, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.... you get the picture. Unfortunately, there's a gate next to said fence that leads into the empty lot we own next door, and there's a large gap under this fence. So, in all their pacings, they inevitably squeeze under this gate and then further compound their delimma by then trapping themselves in the lot next door, which has absolutely no entrance back into our yard. So from there they resume their pacing, half the time finding themselves out in the street and trying to get in our gated driveway. Well, the first time we were missing a chicken, I figured she was locked out of the yard and would show up in the morning, which she did. Same thing happened this morning, only, things went steadily downhill from there.

Here's what happened.
Phase I: I saw her on the wrong side of the fence, so I opened the gate at the corner of the property by the pond, ran back to where she was, grabbed a tree branch and walked behind her encouraging her to walk toward the open gate. I do this almost every day for wayward chickens. Only, this chicken walked the entire length of the fence, coming within 5 feet of the open gate, then would panic and turn around and run the way we had come. I would whack at her side of the fence with the stick, trying to cut off her retreat. So what did she do? She'd leave the fence line and run off into the woods, making a large detour around the angry woman yelling wielding a stick. So then I'd have to run along my side of the fence and try to get on the far side of her to start the whole process again. We did this 4, maybe 5 times. At this point I'm starting to get angry, as it is 46 degrees out and I am just trying to help this chicken get back inside so she can eat some breakfast. After about the 5th time of having her within feet of the gate, only to watch her backtrack the entire length of the fence (about 250 feet!), I tried jumping over the fence. Yea, so I have not done that since I was a kid, and my center of gravity has...shall we say, shifted. After attempt 4 of getting my bulk over the fence, I drag a cinderblock up as a step. I catapult myself over the gate, land wrong, and twist my ankle. So now I'm near tears, swearing, and watching the retreating back of this blasted chicken, of course headed in the wrong direction. I'm so angry at this point I ignore my ankle and go plunging through the woods in hot pursuit. At this point I don't care that I'm chasing her away from the gate, I just want to grab her or at least give her a good scare. I'm so immature. Branches are crashing, thorns are tearing at my flesh, spiderwebs engulf my face, and all I care about is grabbing That Chicken. I cornered her a half dozen times, flailing out at her, my fingers like talons, only to feel her slip through my grasp. This went on much longer than any sane person would have allowed. Back and forth we went, until finally she ran away from the fence altogether and ran into the woods. I pursued. I finally gave up when she ran into a massive briar patch, and I screamed, "FINE! You can live out here for all I care!" I stormed back to the house seeing red, and feeling as if I was burning alive from the inside out. I went and milked the goats, my sweet sweet goats that follow me wherever I care to lead them, and still no sign of That Chicken.

Phase II: After having cooled off somewhat, I decided to lure her back with her flock-mates. I took their goody pan (where their scraps go. I call "here biddies!" and they come running) with a handful of chicken feed in it, call the chickens, and head out the open gate by the pond looking like the Pied Piper with 16 chickens at my heels. I set the pan just outside the gate, and watch as a few chickens run out to it, and sure enough, here comes That Chicken. She joins in and eats heartily. If you look closely in this picture you can see the silver pan just outside the open gate with chickens surrounding it. That Chicken is the white one standing to the right of the pan. I figure she'll just come right back in with the other chickens. Of course not! They finish eating, the other slightly smarter chickens come back in through the gate, she follows them, then at the last minute veers off to the right and walks along, yes, you guessed it, THE WRONG SIDE OF THE FENCE! I'm nearly blowing a gasket at this point. I do everything to encourage her to walk back toward the gate, ensuing a long and drawn out repeat of Phase I. I storm back to the house. I hate this chicken. I'm already imagining life without her, and am slightly saddened that my future generations of chickens will not have her unique white coloring, because I AM GOING TO KILL THIS CHICKEN!

Phase III: Time goes by. She still does not come in on her own. I am storming around the chicken coop looking for Ayden's bug net, with visions of netting That Chicken. I find the net, but there's no way a chicken will a) fit in the net and b) be stupid enough to run into a neon orange net with a large caterpillar head on it. So, I walk back to the fence one more time, kick the fence a couple times to move her toward the gate, and watch with bated breath as she inches closer and closer to the open gate.... she faked right a few times like she would head back into the woods, and at this point I am praying to God above, please just make this chicken come through the gate. So she does. Comes walking in like its the most logical thing in the world.

Ugh. As I wearily walk back toward the house, still exasperated from the whole operation, a single brown chicken runs full speed at me and starts pecking my boots. She's taken a shining to my purple toenail polish, and for the last couple weeks every time I come outside she runs up to me looking quite confrontational, and takes a peck at my toes, which does not particularly feel nice. Here's a picture of her having a go at my boots this morning. I've been trying to tell Dustin how the chickens no longer respect me, they try to eat my toes, and in the mornings I have to put my purse on my exposed flip-flop clad toes as I physically push them aside to open their small door in the coop. They used to part like the Red Sea when they saw me coming. Not so anymore! Now I get bum rushed by this brown chicken each time I walk outside, and confronted with an unmovable wall-o-chicken if I dare to tresspass.