Hen Chronicles: They can be slow to adapt at times

Thanks to the Blizzard of 2013, which buried Maine and the rest of the Northeast in 2 feet or more of wind-blown snow a few weeks back, I learned that chickens, like humans, can get into a rut.

Until the heavy snow flew in on 50 mph winds, I always fed “the girls” in their outdoor pen. But when I opened the door to their coop at dawn on Saturday, Feb. 9, at the height of the storm, they refused to come out, even though I had done my best to clear the snow from their feeding area in the pen. Seeing no other choice, I placed their food and water bowls in the coop for the first time ever and locked the hens in for the day, to keep out the snow and the wind.

As so often happens after a big winter storm, the next day was beautiful. There was barely a cloud in the sky that Sunday. The sun shone brightly, the wind had died down, and the temperature had risen just enough to make for a pleasant day.

Figuring that Snow and Nala would slip back into their old ways now that Mother Nature had calmed down, I put their food and water bowls in the pen that morning and unlatched the coop to let them out. But despite the dramatic change in the weather, the hens again refused to emerge. Ditto on Monday, even though the good weather continued that day as well.

Not until Tuesday morning did the chickens gingerly set foot on the ramp leading down from the coop to the pen, and resume the breakfast routine that had been their norm for more than nine months . . . until a blizzard reprogrammed the girls so completely that it took them a full three days to recover.