My 2 young geese, whom I now affectionately refer to as the wrecking crew, have added a new job to their daily “chores”. Every morning I go from coop to coop of chickens, feeding and watering the youngest, letting the free range ones out to roam, and tossing out the morning scratch feed.

From the time they were a week old I’ve been taking Lucy and Zander out with me, and they know the routine really well by now at 3 months of age and almost full sized. Their job has been to lag behind a bit, and chase the chickens that I am letting out into the yards, I’m assuming to encourage exercise, or something else important. At least to watch them it seems whatever they are doing is important.

This week, however, they have started a new job – tossing scratch out all over the ground. They never seemed interested in scratch, but the other day Lucy, who stopped honking and chasing long enough to notice some chickens eating it off the ground, tried some for herself – and she loved it! Of course, Zander had to try some, too. Now they chase after me when I get the scratch. They eat it straight out of the scoops, and are so messy I no longer need to throw the scratch out along the ground. I just have to keep moving to new groups of chickens.

The wrecking crew seems to really look forward to our morning chores. I now wonder how I ever managed to take care of the chickens without them!