Yellow Jacket Wasp excitement

I keep trying to write posts of things that I've done over the summer, like some natural dyeing.  However, life keeps intervening with much more interesting and important issues.   A couple of days ago, one of our chooks disappeared when they were out free ranging.   This isn't abnormal as we are in a rural area and there are chicken eating predators: raccoons, foxes, hawks, and coyotes.   We've seen all of them nearby.   When we lose a chook, I always lock up my girls for a few days, so whatever critter ate one, doesn't get another free meal.

However, we have one chook, the grey americauna, who is still skittish and timid.  Most of the other chooks get very friendly in just a few weeks, when they learn that I feed them, but even after almost two years, this grey hen just panics, hides and keeps her distance.  She does tend to go her own way at times,   so when I tried to lock them all in their secure pen in the barn, for their safety, she decided she was going to roost in the open area of the barn.  

Chooks don't see well in the dark, so you can slip in and pick up even the most skittish chook, once they've settled for the night.  We figured we'd just pick her up and pop her into the pen after she settled.  The problem was that we went into the barn too early.   She was on the window sill.  When Al tried to pick her up, she freaked and threw herself forward into the window.  The window didn't break, but it turned out that it wasn't fastened securely.   Just a couple of tiny nails, which turned out to be loose, were holding it in place.   The chook managed to pop the window right out of place. 

She flew out the open window, and as Al picked up the window, to see how to re-attach it, he started to scream and run.   It turned out that all this commotion had disturbed a wasps nest (yellow jackets), which had been built in the barn wall, 30 cm from the door, right under the window.   I got one sting this summer, as I was leaving the barn, and am amazed it was only one.  Al was lucky.  He's fast.  He got into the house and managed to find the fly swatter, get them all quickly, with only 6 or  7 stings.

Before we could get the barn window fixed, we had to do something about the wasps nest.  Al suited himself up with protective gear, and sprayed the nest two nights in a row.  In the dark when the wasps had settled for the night, I went into the barn to make sure the chooks in the pen had food and water.  I couldn't catch the grey girl though, so she was out alone for 2 days and slept in the barn with the open window.   On the third day, we had wicked rain all morning and I couldn't find her, even after the rain cleared.   I thought she'd disappeared in the night, with that open window and all.  However mid afternoon, she reappeared, quite happy to have my company.  

Al and my son fixed the window last night.  It won't come off easily as it's been secured with multiple screws!  Two nights of spraying seemed to have reduced the nest dramatically, so we didn't have wasps attacking..   All this was good because we had some new chooks coming today and we needed to get them into the secure pen.  They need to be confined to their new pen for at least a week, so that they learn where their new home is.
 
This morning I picked up the new ready to lay chooks, called that because someone else raises them until they're about 16 weeks old and ready to start laying.  When I opened the pen door, the grey chook, who'd been without her flock for 3 1/2 days, ran in to the secure pen without issues.   Yay!  Since I only had 3 new girls, I had transported them in a dog crate.  They easily popped out of the crate and into the pen.    They are all safe and sound now.  It made me feel very happy and content to have a secure flock, with few more chooks. 

However, I did see a wasp go back into the nest opening as I was leaving.   I'll have to keep an eye on that!