Chicken Rustling Anyone??

Anyone who knows me knows that my youngest son Brandon is always coming up with some new scheme of one sort or another.

This is a photo of the imp in question. He turned 8 in September and began his journey as a Cub Scout. Since he's our last boy, it's Dad's last chance to do Cub Scout things. They built this bird house together to meet one of his requirements to get his Wolf Badge.

Now to the chicken rustling story:

My son Stephen called me on my cell phone and said, "I think Brandon stole a chicken."

I said, "He stole what? It sounded like you said he stole a chicken."

Stephen said, "Yeah, he stole a chicken."

Then I said, "You mean a chicken, like out of the freezer, or from a store?"

Stephen said, "No, like a real chicken, there's one in the travel trailer."

I said, "THERE'S A DEAD CHICKEN IN OUR TRAVEL TRAILER?????"

Stephen said, "No, it's alive, and there's a bunch of bread in there too."

I'm thinking immediately, "at least I have another good story to tell."

I knew right away where he got it from, but I couldn't figure out why, or how.

Our neighbors at the top of our driveway keep chickens, and Brandon has been fascinated that they lay eggs and that you can actually eat the eggs. When we first moved to the country, he was openly in awe at their house to see this phenomenon. I could just see what they were thinking when he said, "You mean you get eggs from ducks and chickens and you can really eat them, just like from the store." They must have been thinking, "City kids!!!"

Well, apparently Brandon decided we needed an egg source. I asked him why he stole the chicken, and he said, "So we could get eggs."

Never mind that I purchase eggs in quantities of 10 dozen to feed this hungry bunch of boys!!

Here's the story according to Brandon: He went in the pen and just chased the chickens around until one ran into the corner by the door and got trapped so he could catch it. He thought the back room of the travel trailer would make a perfect chicken coop, so he put it in there. We don't use the trailer much in the winter except when we have company, and then we turn it into a guest room.

He gave the chicken some bread to eat and checked on it from time to time. He kept it there for a couple of days until it got discovered. We really don't go into the trailer much, so it was lucky our son went out there to get something and discovered our new friend.

As for the chicken, we made him put it back and apologize for taking the chicken. I think he should have to apologize to all of the chickens for scaring them. But that begs the question: How do you apologize to a chicken?