The other side of the fence

The question is:
What to do when the grass is greener on the other side of the fence?

There's only one answer:

Go to the other side!

As I mentioned in one of previous posts, some of our chickens (recently only one) like to fly out from their run and stroll around.

Christine the Chicken enjoying the other side.

Of course, the reason why a chicken flies out of the run is not to practice her flying, but because the grass is, literally, greener on the other side.
And there are incomparably more bugs out there!

Guess which half of the photo is inside and which is outside of the run.

Thanks to chickens' relentless effort, the lush grassy carpet that used to cover their playground is by now completely gone. Not that chickens would suffer any inconvenience because of that. They still enjoy foraging and dust bathing and all their favorite pastimes. It's just that .... the grassy world out there looks now so much more exciting in comparison!

Power plant Oo / Chickens Playground in late October 2015.

So the other day we opened the gate and let chickens out to enjoy the grass. How happy they were!

Chickens and the grass.

But how hard it was then to persuade them to go back home! They were not cooperative at all.

Nobuo trying to convince the chickens to go back home.

It's clear that the real solution to the problem of an escaping chicken is not more nets or wires. The real solution is to let chickens go to the grassy area (but without having to chase them home every day). In practice, it means to turn the grassy area into a new chicken run. That's what we're going to do!

Chickens will then have two runs that they will use in turns. While they use one of them, the other has time to recover (in theory. We'll see how the rotation on only two runs will work.)
So we've started erecting wooden stakes for the fence around new playground.

Wooden stakes of the new fence. 

(Just in case it's not clear which stakes I mean.)

Let's see how fast we'll finish building the new run. Grass will eventually dry up in winter, so we better speed up so chickens can enjoy the last grassy/buggy feast.

Our eggs now available in a local produce store!

(日本語)

You can now buy our hens' eggs at a nearby local produce store:

Local produce store Sakura
1-1608 Furuku, Tsukuba 305-0021

The store is about 5 minutes on foot from our farm - so I use bicycle to deliver the eggs every morning.

Store's shopping hours:  Every day 9:00 - 18:00. 
Closed on Wednesdays. 


The shelf with our eggs looks like this:

The sign is only in Japanese:  とりの遊び場　放し飼いたまご (= Chickens playground Free range eggs). There's a picture of the farm so it's easy to recognize.

We also still sell eggs directly at the farm to customers who contact us in advance. Those are always the freshest of the fresh.
We are also still looking for customers who would like to buy our eggs regularly (either come to pick up at the farm, or have them delivered.)
Contact: ＴＥＬ　080-7953-4242　 ＥＭＡＩＬ　suravukabat★gmail.com　（please replace ★ with @)

These are our chickens (video from 20th October 2015):

直売所でうちのたまごが買えます！

(English article)

今週からうちのニワトリのたまごを近くの農協の直売所で販売することになりました。

「近くの農協の直売所」というのは、

桜農産物直売所
〒305-0021
つくば市古来1608-1


のことです。おお発電所から歩いて5分です。毎日自転車で産み立てのたまごを出荷しています。

直売所の営業時間：毎日９：００～１８：００。　定休日：水曜日。


うちの「とりの遊び場　放し飼いたまご」の売り場はこんな感じです。ぜひ買いに来てください！

今までの通り、事前連絡があればその日の産み立てたまごを発電所でお渡しすることもやっています。また、定期的に買ってくれるお客さんを今も募集中です！
連絡：ＴＥＬ　080-753-4242　ＥＭＡＩＬ　suravukabat★gmail.com　（★を＠に置き換えてください。）


このニワトリ達が毎日産んでいるたまごです：

よろしくお願いします！

Our flock's Christopher Columbus

Our flock's Christopher Columbus is in fact Christine Columbus.

Here she is, our Explorer-in-Chief:

Christine Columbus enjoying view from the roof of an old coop.
Our chickens were never supposed to walk on the roof.
The view must be lovely though. 

"My chickens fly the sky." This is a motto of our friend Mr. Kanno, a farmer in Yamagata prefecture. I have always liked this motto because it's so poetic. Chickens are not just economic animals, they are also romantic flying creatures.

I recently recalled this phrase because now I can proudly announce that

Our chickens fly the sky too!

Christine Columbus perching on a pipe 3 meters 
above the ground. No one helped her there. 

I'm very happy for them and I'm proud of them. Our chickens fly the sky!

But it is also a problem.  

I'm all for the romance and the poetry of flying chickens, but in reality when your chickens can fly too well, it becomes a problem.

It is a problem because the chickens can now fly away.

They fly over the fence and wander into areas where they are not supposed to go. In the evening they do come back home (or at least close to the home) but while they are wandering and exploring the outer world during the day, they are witnessed by all of our neighbors, strolling around on other people's property. On Japanese countryside, it is considered good manners to respect the boundaries between your land and someone else's land, even if the trespasser is just an innocent chicken.

Christine Columbus exploring public road.

Christine Columbus exploring neighbor's rice field. 

(Just to make sure you're looking at the right spot.)

Christine Columbus captured at the very moment of 
trespassing to neighbor's property.

Chickens' exploration beyond our farm's borders is unacceptable for several reasons:  

1. because they might cause meiwaku (inconvenience） to the neighbors (though it's hard to imagine what inconvenience that could be), 

2. because they might get attacked by a chicken enemy, 

3. because it violates local manners, which dictate that you respect property boundaries of your neighbor.

It also makes an impression that we are not in control of our own farm. Right now this is a correct impression, but it's not good to be viewed in this light for too long.

That's why we have to prevent our chickens from flying beyond the farm boundaries. We've tried several tactics and it seems we have partly succeeded. There used to be two or three Christine Columbuses every day, but now there's just one or none a day. I would call that a success. Until they invent new ways ....

Hopefully (or regrettably) I will not be able 
to take pictures like this any more...

And so our flying chickens place before me a dilemma. On the one hand I'm proud of them for their extraordinary flying skills and exploratory aspirations, on the other hand I have to prevent them from strolling around on the road or the neighbor's field. 

Life is full of contradictions. Sigh.