(Not) Getting the Chickens Drunk

Rachel came to visit us awhile ago and I really didn't have anything planned to entertain her. I kept thinking about Vivian (what would Vivian do?), and how she always comes up with just the perfect outing. Rocky Mtn National Park? Too crowded. Horseback riding? Kinda expensive. I guess we could just go on a bike ride, or...maybe we could get the chickens drunk? Yes. Perfect.

After a truly fantastic lack of protest from Rachel the game was afoot. Chris supported the idea, but not to the point of actually being willing to go purchase the alcohol, which left Rachel and I in the chilled beverages section of Safeway, feeling a little in over our heads. What kind of beer do chickens drink? Cheep beer, right? So we chose the least expensive one, felt exposed and awkward getting carded at the checkout counter and ran guiltily out to the car clutching our beer in a little brown paper bag.

Back at home some questions remained. How much beer does it take to intoxicate a chicken? How do you even get them to drink the beer? How do you know when the chicken is drunk- does it just get snuggly? Or sad? We poured some beer in their water dish but they seemed uninterested. I mixed up a slurry with some oatmeal but they abandoned it after a few pecks. Finally we soaked some bread in the beer and they ate a reasonable amount...before wandering off, still appearing remarkably (and disappointingly) coordinated. These chickens would absolutely have passed a roadside sobriety test.

We looked at each other, perplexed, until Chris took a better look at the beer we were using. "That stuff is basically water, you know," he said. "The cheap stuff is about 2% alcohol."

"Can we go back to the store and get whiskey this time?!" asked a still-motivated Theo.

But the thrill had gone out of the game. We ate our dinner, watched a movie, went to bed, and mostly forgot about it until the next day when Lucy, ever noble, told me she'd brought it up in her annual bishopric interview:

"Is there anything you need to confess to the bishop?"
"Well, is it a sin to try to get your chickens drunk on beer?"
-Long Pause-
"Um. Hmmm. OK, maybe just don't do it again."

No promises, Brother Walker, no promises.


(I thought about including a picture of a not drunk chicken on here, but it would have just looked like a regular chicken, so...just use your imagination.)