Hen Chronicles: Obsessive behavior in the feathered set

The chicken brain may not be very large, but it is complex. Or, at least, baffling.

When we had a spell of unusually cold, blustery weather last week, I was reminded that hens seem to have a switch in their little noggins that we might call the POA, or Poultry Obsession Activator. The problem is that, once a hen flips this switch and becomes fixated, she either can’t or won’t turn it off until a great deal of time has passed. Hence the obsession.

Here’s how it works.

During our recent spate of nasty weather, “the girls” decided that they would not leave the relative comfort of their coop to get some exercise in the outdoor pen, even though their food and water are in the pen and they normally spend most of their daylight hours outside all year long.

On the first unpleasant morning, the three hens emerged for breakfast, then marched right back into the coop and flew up onto the roost, where they nestled together to keep warm and avoid the high winds. After that, they refused to budge, emerging only long enough to wolf down their late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks.

Now, I didn’t blame the hens for wanting to stay out of the elements. If anything, they deserve praise for having enough sense to do so. But even when I moved their feed bowl from the pen to the coop, I could see that their appetites were off, probably because they weren’t getting enough exercise.

On the second day, the winds died down a bit and the weather improved somewhat. But to play it safe, I covered the top of the pen with plywood and the east and west sides with tarps. The north side of the pen is attached to the coop, so only the south side remained open. This made for a cozier atmosphere.

And how did the girls react to this upgrade in their outdoor environs? The POA remained on. The hens hunkered down on the roost in the coop yet again, obsessively convinced that life outside still wasn’t worth living unless there were snacks to be had out there.

It wasn’t until the third day that the hens finally abandoned their preoccupation with round-the-clock coop life. Only then did they remain outside for extended periods of time, as they normally do. But even on the fourth day, they were slow to emerge from the coop first thing in the morning. They eased their way down the ramp tentatively, as if uncertain that “the crisis” had truly passed.

Looking back, I realize this wasn’t the first time I’d seen the POA in use. In the winter of 2013, a blizzard hit central Maine. The day after the storm blew out, it was sunny and relatively warm for winter. There was little or no snow in the pen. But “the girls” refused to leave the coop until the third storm-free day.

Then, as now, though, the hens’ slavish devotion to living the coop life 24/7 was accompanied by another, healthier obsession. Even in the worst weather, they never stopped laying eggs.