New homes for the animals

We've always been catlovers, but since we moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area, we've added to our menagerie. We've had six chickens and two fishtanks full of tropical fish. There's no way they were going to move with us.

The good news is that we had no shortage of people wanting to adopt the fish or the chickens. My co-worker, Kevin, claimed the fish. He came over one Tuesday night after work to pick them up. This was a big job! First, he and Gordon had to fish around to get the fairly panicked fish out of the fish tank and into the awaiting buckets. Covering the buckets with fish matters! Those things will jump right out if they get panicked enough! Anyhow, we emptied and disassembled the tanks and packed everything up in Kevin's truck. It took us about two and a half hours, most of the time on draining those extremely large tanks. I felt bad for Kevin, he had to go home and set them up after that. I think he was up until after midnight. He did lose two fish on the way home, two small catfish I think, but most of the fish, including the very large plecostomus (two of them) are thriving now, I hear.

My co-worker Lucinda, who lives up in the foothills, and her husband Steve decided to adopt our six chickens. We also agreed that Lucinda could take the chicken coop. So moving the chickens became a very large task - not just catching the chickens and putting them in cat carriers, but also extracting the coop from our chicken yard. Here's a picture of the coop in Steve's truck. I am not sure how this happened, since I know we moved the coop into the chicken yard, but the coop does not fit through any of our gates. So Steve, Gordon and our friend Doug ended up removing two gates to carry the coop out to the truck. I helped, I really did! I also helped catch the chickens. That was interesting. We chased the chickens into a corner and then tried to pick them up. apparently, chickens can fly, and when you reach for them, well, they fly right at your face as a defensive maneuver. I found myself outwitted by the chickens several times; but ultimately, other people (definitely not me) caught them and put them into cat carriers for a ride to their new home. Lucinda had read that chickens are traumatized by moving and generally don't lay eggs for a while afterwards. Not these chickens. By the time she got home, two of them had laid eggs in the cat carriers.

Here's a picture of the coop being picked up and moved. That was hard work! Afterwards, Gordon, Doug and Steve broke into the Irish whiskey to recover. you can see why they needed to drink!