<p style="text-align:center;"><em>A guest blog by Chicken Wrangler Sara</em></p>
Usually when you have a farm, you think of gathering eggs.  In our case, we must also gather chicks. 

First, we move the chicks out of the brooder into the small chicken yard. The chicks are understandably frightened of the big world and huddle together in a “chick pile.”

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chicken-pile.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2921" alt="chicken pile" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chicken-pile.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="225" /></a>

We have to gather them up and put them into the coop at night to keep them safe from predators like possums. 

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chicken-gathering.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-2922" alt="chicken gathering" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/chicken-gathering.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="225" /></a>

After a few nights, they get more adventurous and move from the corner of the yard to directly under the coop, which makes the nightly gathering process much more difficult. 

Eventually they get the idea that inside the coop is the place to be at night, and we simply have to close the door.

But there is the one crazy chicken who wants to live next door.  Several times, we have found her in the neighbor’s yard and must gather her back to her flock. She is smart enough to go behind the privacy fence where their dog cannot get to her. 

The first morning I went to get her, the neighbor's dog was out so I closed the gate to the privacy fence while I gathered the chicken to take back to her place in the chicken coop yard.

Too late, I realized the fence locked from the other side and I was locked in.

There was a time in my life when I would have panicked. After running Miller farm for several years it takes more than being locked in the neighbor’s yard to fluster me!

I simply climbed up the fence and unlocked the gate.

We also have a crazy quail.  Being white, it is automatically different from all the others. A couple of weeks ago, Crazy Quail aka CQ got its wing stuck in the cage. I carefully got it unstuck and fully expected it to die. 

It didn’t, but its wing was broken and it can’t fly. Now CQ attacks whoever puts food in the cage or getting eggs out and frequently jumps out onto the ground.

 I have to gather CQ back into the cage all the time wondering why I don’t just let the crazy bird escape. I guess I feel sorry for it since it can’t really fly with the broken wing.

My parents have an Old English Sheep dog that likes to “herd” whatever is around including people. 

[caption id="attachment_2925" align="aligncenter" width="300"]<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/toby-herding-cropped.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-2925" alt="Toby training to herd goats." src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/toby-herding-cropped.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="236" /></a> Toby training to herd goats.[/caption]

All this gathering of chicken and quail makes me wonder if we could train Toby to herd birds.