<p align="center"><i>A blog by Guest Blogger Chicken Wrangler Sara</i></p>
Chickens are creatures of habit and head for the coop when the sun goes down. Each of them goes to their specified spot on the roost and settles in for the night.

<a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/coop.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3138" alt="coop" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/coop.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="168" /></a>This is their usual routine. This last week, however, was not usual for them.  I was not there and things weren’t routine.

A couple of the larger birds, including a rooster, are spending part of their day in the bantam coop with the smaller birds. This causes some confusion in the evening routine now that I have returned.

One night, a large hen was in the coop with the bantams. She didn’t look particularly comfortable and didn’t complain too much when I extracted her and put her in the large coop.

The rooster was on top of the quail cage and this presented a more complicated problem.

With the dachshunds outside, there was a danger of the rooster going over the fence and “playing” with Bella. Even when running along the fence line, there is the possibility of its head sticking through the fence, which is too much of a temptation for Bella.

The first night, I just chased the silly rooster around until I caught it, screaming the whole time “Don’t go near the fence.”

Our neighbors – bless ‘em – have learned to ignore most sounds from our yard.

Last night, I got the dachshunds inside before I began the rooster chase. But, some of the other large birds find this spectacle very amusing and come back out of the coop to watch. <a href="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/rooster-looking-at-bantams.jpg"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-3139" alt="rooster looking at bantams" src="http://judythewriter.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/rooster-looking-at-bantams.jpg?w=300" width="300" height="251" /></a>

This means that once I have the rooster on the right side of the chicken yard, I must chase him and the other birds around the outside of the coop until they go inside.

Far more exercise than I really want right before bed. Ah, the joys of being a chicken wrangler.