Poultry poems

(With apologies to Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

O ducklings! my ducklings! your water do you fling.

The shavings in your pen are damp, there's poop

          on everything.

Your food is wet, I had just set, your box

          all neat and clean.

Alas, before my very eyes, in seconds its

          untidy.

                    But O ducks! ducks! ducks!

                    O the light brown fluff you wear

                    And the little bills and webby feet

                                 seem to make it fair!

Beneath the warm and heated plate

Twenty chickens peep.

They're small and cute and stay up late,

Not often do they sleep.

Their bedding is strewn across the floor

And so we need to sweep.

We have four types of baby hen

With five of every kind.

Five black, five striped, five orange, and then

Some yellow you will find.

We did not think to count the chickens

The paper we just signed.

We spend a lot of time each day

Watching all the fun.

The chicks run here, then run away,

they lie down in the sun.

But when we really paid attention

We counted twenty-one.