I’m definitely an early-to-bed-early-to-rise kind of guy. But even my up-and-at-em attitude pales by comparison to that of our hens, who greet every morning with more enthusiasm than I manage to muster on my best days.
When a new day dawns, Nala, Stella and Snow behave like an old cartoon come to life. Once the hens hear me approaching their closed coop first thing in the morning, they bounce around so vigorously that I half expect the coop to start jumping and bucking and hopping, like something out of a Looney Tunes feature.
And when I open the small henhouse door to let the girls into their pen, they all try to squeeze out at once, even though the door is only big enough for one hen to pass through it at a time. They run out in such a frenzy that wood shavings fly out with them, creating a mini-blizzard of bedding. It’s as if the hens have fused themselves into a three-headed, six-footed mega-bird whose parts move as one.
Released from its overnight confinement, the triple-headed hen separates into its three component parts, and the chickens quickly run to their food bowl, whose contents disappear with amazing speed. The girls then race around the pen while Snow squawks up a storm, all in hopes of getting even more food before I head back into the house.
We’ve all seen those novelty books that list, with cute photos of cats or dogs, everything the authors have learned from their pets, but I’ve never heard anyone claim to have learned much of anything from a chicken.
So let me correct that omission here and now. Taking a page from the poultry playbook, I resolve to try to start my day in a perkier, more animated frame of mind. Minus the wood shavings, of course.
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