There's a certain kind of chaos that only a chicken owner understands, and the photo in that Reddit post captures it perfectly. There they are, standing outside the coop, looking up at their owner with that unmistakable expression that translates to, "And what, exactly, are you going to do about it?" The title, "Why aren't ya in the coop?" is basically the battle cry of every backyard poultry keeper who has ever been outsmarted by a bird with a brain the size of a walnut. We've all been there, standing in the yard, hands on our hips, wondering if we're the farmer or the one being farmed. It's the same energy as our piece on a Chickens Got Her Good! A Backyard Poultry Adventure, where the joke was on the human, not the hen.
But here's the thing about this little snapshot of fowl play: it's not actually about the chicken. It's about the relationship, and the fact that we keep going back for more even when they clearly run the place. These birds aren't just livestock; they're tiny, feathered roommates who refuse to respect our schedules or our fences. And honestly, we respect that. We love our Six fluffy chicks have hatched—egg-cellent news from our feathered friends! and the Tiny Marans Froment chicks are cluck-tastic, and currently napping! because they remind us that we're not just keepers, we're enablers. We let them sleep on our laps, we talk to them like they understand our problems, and then we act shocked when they decide they own the yard. The audacity is the point.
So what do we tell a reader who sees this and thinks, "I could never deal with that?" We say you're right, you can't. You can't deal with it, and neither can we, but that's exactly why we love it. The whole hobby is a negotiation, and the chickens always have the upper hand because they don't care about our deadlines or our desire for order. They care about the scratch grains and the fact that the neighbor's flower bed looks tastier than anything you've planted. This post is a reminder that you aren't failing when your chicken ignores you; you're finally getting the honest truth about who wears the feathers in this relationship. The practical takeaway here isn't how to get them in the coop, but rather how to accept that you can't. You can build a fancier coop, you can bribe them with mealworms, but at the end of the day, they'll still stand right outside the door at 8 PM, giving you that look.
What we're really watching in that photo is a standoff, and the human blinks first. We'd tell any new owner to just get comfortable with being the one who waits, because the moment you think you've won, you'll find a hen on your porch, pecking at the welcome mat as if to say, "Nice try, boss." The concrete detail to watch for is the next time you see a chicken out of bounds, don't chase it. Just ask yourself if you're really the one in charge, or if you're just the one holding the door. Because that bird already knows the answer, and it's not going to be clucking about it quietly.
