
This is when I tend to dream up elaborate schemes to finance my chicken obsession. As an old acquaintance from college has taken to reminding me, chickens are gateway animals, so when I say chicken obsession, I really envision:
- a beautiful red barn for 10 goats, 6 alpacas, and 3 donkeys
- about 100 chickens in 5 awesome coops, one of which will be a hobbit hole coop
- 12 giant fluffy grey-white geese wandering my yard
- 2 well-trained pyrenees
- a goat tower
- another barn for sheep plus my favorite hybrid, sheep-goats.

- 14 chickens
- too many roosters
- 1 rickety old red barn
- 2 awesome chicken coops
- 1 old shed that looks good in pictures, but is about to fall in
- 1 old hog nursery building begging me to convert it to a chicken coop
- fences in all the wrong places
- abundance of passion, very few useful skills.

Then, I thought of Jurassic Park. (You randomly think of Jurassic Park, too, right? ) I was briefly enamored with the thought of building a Jurassic Park and filling its pens and fields with my 100 chickens. You remember the Velociraptor pen? That could be for my barred rock roosters.... Compsognathus (Compys) could easily be portrayed by my Silkie chickens....

Inspired, I immediately searched the internet to see if someone else has built a Jurassic Park with chickens that I could go visit, but I did not find one. I did find that the movie "Chicken Park" was produced in 1994 to parody Jurassic Park, and that interestingly one of the inspirations for Jurassic Park (Paleontologist Jack Horner) was uttering something for the last few years about using genetically modified chickens to grow dinosaurs. Did someone at Tyson give Jack a job?
Hmmmm, maybe I can host retreats for eccentric paleontologists to observe chicken behaviors to fund my chicken paradise. I've always wanted to put my Paleobiology Minor to good use!