Hen Chronicles: It's Day One for the new trio

Yesterday's drive out to the country to pick up laying hens went well. For one thing, it was a beautiful spring day here in Maine. We didn't get lost. We got to the farm on time. And the folks from whom we bought the chickens were very nice, even tossing in (not literally!) some free eggs to sweeten the deal.

My wife, Liz, and two teenage girls - family friends who joined us on the trip - picked and named our hens. Nala is a Barred Rock. Near as I can tell, that's another name for the Plymouth Rock, or a version of that breed. As for the other two, their ancestry is more muddled. Stella, who is a lovely chestnut color, is either a Rhode Island Red or a New Hampshire Red. As her name implies, Snow is a white bird, but of unknown origin.

First day on the job

We brought the hens home in three cat carriers. The trip took at least 90 minutes, but they were surprisingly quiet and subdued most of the way, with only a bit of pleasant, low-keyed clucking, although two of them pooped up quite a storm en route back to the house.

The ladies seemed to adjust quickly to the new coop and pen in our backyard. The first real surprise came when I checked the nest boxes just for the heck of it less than two hours after we arrived home and found two eggs nestled atop the bedding. These girls don't fool around!

Still more surprising was what happened at dusk. I had read that chickens will return to the coop on their own to bed down for the night, which struck me as a fanciful notion, like something out of a children's book. Sure enough, when Liz and I headed out at 7:45 p.m., having steeled ourselves for the task of getting the chickens out of their pen and back inside, all three of them were lined up on their roost in the coop by the time we arrived.

The hens survived their first night, despite my obsessive fears about clever chicken-loving wildlife. We may introduce them to Aquinnah, our chocolate lab, and Martha, our pit bull mix, today, or maybe we'll postpone that encounter until the newcomers have had more time to get acclimated. I have the sneaking suspicion that the dogs will not take well to this "intrusion" onto their turf, at least initially. Maybe they, too, will surprise me.