Storm Chaser

No, not the kind where I try to track down super cells bruising the sky. I'm talking chickens running everywhere after a microburst sent one of the hoop coops a good ten yards down over a hill.I've been raising pastured poultry in the same design for twenty years. Until two years ago I'd never had the wind turn one into a sail the kind of way an unweighted tent cartwheels through the market on a blustery day. Blame it on global warming.The first time it happened a few years ago I had just got into my van to leave for a girls' night out at a local winery. It was early August, one of those steamy evenings ripe for a downpour. With visibility near zero I decided to wait out the storm before leaving. All my weather apps confirmed this would blow through in a few minutes. And blow through it did.Only a few feet in front of my bumper was the hoop coop full of chickens about the size of softballs. Like something out of the Wizard of Oz the coop lifted into the air before blowing down over the hill, feeders and waterers flung about. A hundred birds scampered under the dense pasture grasses bent over heavy with the downpour. Chase chickens in the pouring rain or live music and wine? I turned the key to the engine.Much to my surprise, when I got home later that night my headlights illuminated little white rustling objects in the pasture. Despite being soaking wet, the birds were alive and well. I've learned that chickens can get wet, they can even get wet and cold and look like they are all dead, but if you bring them in the house or put a heat lamp on them to get them dry they perk up and go on about their business none the worse.After hauling the coop back up the hill with the 4WD runabout I scooped up all the birds wearing a headlamp. Birds don't move much when it's dark so picking them up was quite easy. I didn't lose a single bird as I counted while putting them back into the coop and reloading their feed and water. Just to be safe, I lashed a heavy portable pen panel to each side of the coop.Last year there was only one storm that sent me running for the panels to be on the safe side.Why not make them heavier? It's a delicate balance between portability and storm-proofing. Hoop coops are something that I prefer to move myself. Using the runabout makes it difficult to see or hear when a bird gets caught under the frame. There is always a stupid one and there is no mistaking when this happens. Moved slowly, it's a simple release of pressure from the pull-rope. Moved too fast and it's an injured or dead chicken. There's no winner for that dinner.So today when I was picking up the next batch of chicks a few towns over, the drive back through the valley became ominously dark the closer I got to the farm. A few big drops on the windshield here and there, but otherwise dry as I drove back the lane. A fresh batch of fuzzy little peepers safe in the brooder, it was time to hustle and get the rest of the chicken chores done before it rained. I threw a sack of feed in the van and drove it out through the freshly harvested hay field where I had started moving the batch of the largest birds. I had noticed swarms of tiny grasshoppers in the cropped grass. The chickens would feast.Thunder and lightning lit up North Mountain so I began to hustle as there was yet another coop of younger birds, including a batch of fancy layers that laid the coveted green eggs, that needed to be fed and watered. Their hoop coop was next to the house for the safety of the porch lights and electricity for added heat the first few days after being moved from the brooder outside onto grass. It also helps to congregate the small birds away from the edges of the coop where a raccoon might be able to reach through the wire enough to snag a leg or head. This is not a pretty sight to find in the morning.The rain and wind hit suddenly and with enough force the coop was spun 90-degrees with me inside. I grasped the frame and the entire structure jerked again with another gust. This was not a safe place to be. In the few feet from the coop to the van I was soaked through. I backed the van up placing the tires on top of the tug rope so at least the coop wouldn’t blow away. I checked the coop by the house. Still there. I checked the radar on my phone. A bright red spot in a yellow blotch surrounded the GPS pin of my location. I looked up and the second hoop coop was gone. Lightning flashed in the field which meant all I could do was sit there, wait and brood about possible modifications to my coop design to prevent this from happening again. This was going to be the last time I chased chickens in the steamy aftermath of a storm. Didn’t the National Weather Service predict a more active than normal hurricane season for this year?The hoop coop survived a ten-meter toss down the hill with little damage. Nothing a few long screws wouldn’t fix. Unfortunately, three birds—of course, the green egg layers—were casualties. It looked like a raccoon attack only without the raccoons. The rest of the flock was alive and spread out around my house, some huddled under the peonies, irises, and poppies in my garden, some under the front porch and others hunkered down in the open. Most were easy to catch as I walked around filling a five-gallon bucket and depositing them back in their coop, but without the cover of lush hayfield the chase was on for the remainder. Now in my second set of clothes, the first soaked set removed as they were off farm clothes and I knew to deal with moving a coop or chasing chickens would quickly turn them into farmwear with some sort of rip or stain, I was gathering wet, scared poultry in the waning storm now down to a shower. It was muggy and playing ring-around-the-rosy with the last two too free ranging birds around my heat pump unit was not how I’d imagined spending the end of my day.This is not my Instagram moment.