As previously mentioned, I’ve been trying to recover from bad energy deficit from exactly a month ago. I thought I was there and then I had two setbacks (one chicken-related, on emotional). I don’t have the spoons to deal with the emotional situation right now so you get CHICKEN VIGNETTES!
Not shown is the fact that the lil peepers knocked over their water dish so many times that the cardboard box started to rot under the litter (and we didn’t realize it until the smell got WAYYYY beyond “chicken poop”) so we had to do a whole transfer. However for next time we now know a dog crate is a pretty solid brooder box and we will use it instead of cardboard. We also had to expand the outdoor coop and just finished it on Sunday so these lil menaces can go out ASAP.
Without further ado. Read from the center in a spiral. (I don’t know why it had to be a spiral but I had strong feelings about it)

Transcript: 7 Weeks of Chickens in the Bathroom (or: where my spoons are disappearing)
Day 1: Child holds baby chick. “They’re so cuh-yooooot!”
Day 4: Adult holds baby chick upside down while three others peep loudly. Child: “Mom, you’re hurting them!” Mom: “I have to check their butts for poop so they don’t die. You wanna do it?” Child: “Ew no”
Week 2: Child, looking at awkwardly half-feathered chicks. “They’re already not so cute.” Mom: “They grow up fast, kiddo. At least they can poop on their own.”
Week 2.5: 4 chicks being chaotic and getting on top of their food and water containers.
Week 3: A hand carefully places a stick in the box. The chicks squawk and crowd into a corner, dramatically peeping. Mom: “Jeez it’s just a stick to sit on.”
24 hours later: The chicks are still crowded into a corner away from the stick. A dotted line marked “safe zone”, stick marked “scary stick”. Child: “Mom, you made a bad perch, they’re still scared of it.”
Week 4: The chicks are up on their food and water and they’re clearly able to jump out of the box. Mom: “Good morning, you need a lid.”
Week 5: Mom and kid are sitting in bathroom with chicks ranging around. Child is petting one. Mom is cleaning up poop from another. Mom: “Y’all poop too much.” Child: “aw but they’re fluffy.”
Week 6: Mom sits on a footstool in the bathroom. 4 chicks are fluffily asleep on her lap. There is poop on the floor. Mom, smiling: “I guess we’re friends now.”
Week 7: Mom is opening the enclosure to feed the birds and one jumps up on her shoulder and looks at her. Mom: “Uh i think it’s outside time.”