Cooped Up Stan's Chicken House

    Stan has had back yard chickens for a few years. They weren’t something he wanted as a childhood dream, but his adopted kids wanted chickens so he built them a first rate coop, feeds them, keeps their cage clean, and can’t kill them because his daughter would cry. ” Do they lay eggs in the winter, ” I ask? ” They slow down, ” Stan says, ” they lay eggs four or five years. ” ” Then what? ” Stan takes a moment and judiciously answers, ” Leave the coop and the gate to the back yard open and hope they take a trip and forget how to get home. ”  Chickens are eaten all over the world, but looking at them makes me uneasy. Why do I want to eat an animal that lives in a cage and pecks in the dirt for its food?  What does Stan do with the cage when his kids grow up and leave home? The coop is too small for Mother-In-Law quarters and it doesn’t come with a big screen TV.