A chicken makes a decision

It is axiomatic that people with small flocks of chickens are easily entertained. It is also true that chickens don’t make decisions because decisions require a consciousness that chickens do not have, which is why people find them entertaining in the first place. Consider my use of the word “decision” as a metaphor for the chicken thought process.

Yesterday I watched Zora, the black bantam Modern, try to decide what to do after I opened the door of the pen. She had been sitting in the nest. Like all the others, she rushed out the door but instead of running across the yard with them, she stopped. She took a few steps back toward the nest, then forward toward the others, then a few steps back. She hesitated. Back and forth again, unable to decide. Hunt with the others? Follow her instinct to remain broody on the nest? Try to understand the impossibility of choosing between these equal urges.

Fortunately she was rescued in the form of a small worm appearing in the dirt in front of her. When she bent to get it, the distraction wiped out all other thoughts and she continued scratching and pecking, gradually joining the others, leaving only me to remember what had happened.

Snow, April evening shouldn't be allowed

Insane weather

I'm personally insulted by the snow. It never ever snows in Seattle in the middle of April. It began with hail, slush and ice falling from afternoon to early evening, now regular snow sticking to roofs and trees and the lawn. To see snow falling at 8 pm before the sun is due to set--well, if other people around here are not unnerved, I'd like to hear about that.

The chickens go into their house, then step outside looking bewildered, as if the snow should have reconsidered and gone away while they were indoors. They whine. I whine. I locked them in early tonight.

Last week I was wearing shorts and listening to the frogs in the evening. Yesterday evening it was not too chilly to stand outside and breathe in the perfume of all the blossoms. This evening I'm wearing fleece and wondering how many frogs and young birds are dying in this sudden cold. It's as if everything has gone into reverse.

The invasion

With the training completed, the hens are growing bolder. They began by roaming through the ivy-covered slope that separates the upper from the lower parts of the back yard. Then, like an invading army breaching the walls of a fort, up they came over the edge onto the cement patio. The patio pattern reminds me of crazy-paving. Instead of being flat cement, there are irregular grooved lines to give the appearance of paving stones. Those grooves make wonderful (for the hens) collection points for dirt, leaf debris, moss, and bugs. Now the dog pooper-scooper is also a chicken pooper-scooper.

Next, they’ll be knocking at the back door.

Basic training is complete.

The six hens sing and crowd up to the pen doorway when they see me coming. Unable to disobey their request for treats, I always bring a scoopful of scratch feed or scraps from the kitchen. If I let them out and dash across the lawn, they all run after me as if there is some urgent reason to follow my feet. When I stop, the feet are suddenly of no interest, for they immediately start scratching in the lawn and pecking at bugs.

The weather here has been 8—10 degrees colder than normal the past week or more. Snow stuck on the lawns and roofs last Friday; this is unusual enough to be an insult.

By Sunday afternoon the snow was gone and the sun warmed a few areas of the yard, though it was cold in the shade. (I must make a new pen because the current one is in a dark, damp side of the yard.) When I let the chickens out, they immediately began sunbathing, pressing one side of their bodies into the lawn while extending the opposite side’s wing and leg, necks stretched out, looking like dedicated tanners or hens in the last act of a convulsive death.

hen pics

Edna on the hunt
This Americauna might be named Brangelina--seems an appropriate use for that name

over exposed eggs

as opposed to over easy

nest boxes

The birds like the plastic tub box in the hutch for laying their eggs. They do not like the cardboard box beside it. They kicked all the wood chips out of the cardboard box but always leave some in the other.

Edna (formerly Edsel) is the star athlete. When I hold out a jumbo mealworm, she darts in, jumps up and grabs it while the other chickens are still eyeing it, trying to figure out what to do. Even when I'm trying to offer the worm to someone else or holding it low so that Punkster and DartMouth can see it from under their top-knots, she grabs it first. Yeah, she's my favorite, even though she doesn't lay green eggs. I like her style.

Besides, I only want to spend so much time grasping a large mealworm between thumb and forefinger, watching it writhe around with its short legs waving.

Finally peace on the home front

Locking Punkster and DartMouth in the hutch for a couple of days and nights did the trick. They stopped picking on the others. Trimming off the sharp tips of their beaks might have had something to do with it, also. The method is to wrap the chicken in a towel and clip off the tip, up to but not including the vein. This blunted the sharp ends just enough to lessen any damage they could do. Maybe it took them down a peg but I can’t verify that. When a chicken is debeaked in the bloody and traumatic (to me) conventional way, just about half the upper beak comes off. The chicken can eat but not peck at others.

Now all six are co-existing in the usual way, with only the “get outta my way” or “hey, that bug’s mine” sort of pecking. The little ones still won’t go into the coop at night. Every evening this week I’ve had to pry them off the perch in the hutch and put them in the coop. There’s now a second perch in the coop but it’s not as high as the first due to the slanted top.

Genius inspiration struck today. I took the perch out of the hutch and put in a nest box made from a plastic tub. I cut down part of one side so that the hen could step in and not have to hop to the top rim and then down. I wasn’t quite genius enough, however. I cut the side too low. DartMouth immediately jumped in and proceeded to remodel the place, scratching all the wood chips onto the wire floor of the hutch where most fell through to the ground.

I think I have to do everything about three times to get it close to right.

musical roosts

the complexities of roosting door, rooster, wings
the complexities of roosting

When it's time to shut the coop door, does one just say, "Night, night, birds" and shut the door as usual? Noooo, one must first pluck a Modern off the top of the hutch and put her inside. Then one must fetch two Americaunas from inside the hutch. It is not easy to reach both arms through a small door, grab a large hen, pry her feet from the perch, and haul her out the door, preferably without breaking a wing or cutting one's hand on the wire of the door opening. And then do it again.

When grabbing a hen, it's best to hold her wings against her body; otherwise she'll flap madly and you'll have a hard time restraining her. But when trying to do that while reaching arm's length into the hutch, the simple grab isn't always effective.

Here's a tip: when you put the hen on the ground, which you need to do to get a better grip on her, run your hand with a little bit of pressure down her back. She'll flatten her back and stand still, not because she loves your gentle touch but because you have just imitated a rooster about to mount her. Works way better than hypnotism.