It's the end of the wooooorrrld!!!!!!

Today was brooder cleaning day, which in chicken speak means "the end of the world".

It starts innocently enough.  I open the brooder side and start scooping out the shavings in one corner.  The chicks scatter and peep at me, but it's no big deal.  Until I get the first corner done and move on to the second ...

Chicks: OMG, our world is SHRINKING!!! Come on ladies, huddle in the back.  We still have half our world left!!

Me: Finish cleaning out the front half of the brooder and move on to the back half, leaving the front half empty of shavings, just a cardboard bottom. 

Chicks: It's the end of the wooooorld!!! Heeeellllpppppppp!!!!! (now they are all crowded into the far corner of the brooder, stepping all over each other)

Now come that moment when I have to push them all from the last corner of earth, into the seventh circle of hell otherwise known as the rest of the brooder that is now sans pine shavings.  PEEP PEEP PEEEEEEEPPPPPPPPP!!!

Now the brooder is clean and ready for more shavings.

Chicks: AVALANCHE!! We're all going to diiiiiieeeee!!!

Wait for it ...

Chicks: Oh.  Nevermind.  False alarm.  Hey, is that new water??

Then life resumes as usual.  Save for the one welsummer, who may very well be the alpha pullet, who jumped up on the roost and squawked loudly at me until I left the room.  Actually, I can still hear her ...

(originally posted 4/20)