As I was writing a previous post one evening, when all the children were asleep, I heard the distressed screeches of a 4 week old chick. I raced down to the play area where the brooder sits and discovered a chick stuck in a small opening at the seam of the play pen/ brooder. My husband was right behind me and we discovered that many more of our flock of youngsters were hanging out between the draft protection and the actual "cage", unable to go any further. We quickly rescued these birds, but after a quick head count discovered that we were 4 chicks short. They couldn't have escaped through the tightly folded sheeting, they had to have jumped/ flown out of the top. We had caught one of the little ladies trying out her wings the day before when she flew up to the bar that holds the lamp but then hopped back down. So the search began. I discovered the first missing lass perched on a toy on the playroom bookcase.
My husband found two hiding behind the shoe rack. It took another 20 minutes of listening for peeps or scratches before we uncovered our last escape artist hiding behind and underneath a giant desk. We had to run her out with a broom because there was no way either of us could get back there and the thing is way too big to move (this particular piece is so cumbersome it came with the house). When the little rascal emerged my husband removed the cobwebs that clung to her feathers and returned her to the brooder. After that incident we removed the draft protection (they didn't really need it anymore), secured all the corners with bungee cords, and added the extra baby gate to the top of our brooder.
This post is part of 31 Days- a writing challenge and nineteenth in my baby chick series!