Hen Chronicles: Some of what I've learned, three years in

Three years ago this month, my wife Liz and I expanded our menagerie of dogs, cats and tropical fish by adding three hens purchased from a couple of hobby farmers in York County, Maine, down near the New Hampshire border.

I learned quite a few things in the 36 months that followed, including how little I really knew about these remarkable, underappreciated creatures, which provide not only food for the body but a welcome boost for the spirit, thanks to their beauty and their antics.

For example, I didn’t realize, way back when, that chickens are simultaneously tough and fragile. Tough in the sense that they can cope quite well with extremes in weather, from the blazing heat of high summer to the most ferocious blizzards in winter. Yet fragile in the sense that they are susceptible to all manner of health problems and diseases. Some of these are fatal and cannot be prevented, or even anticipated, by owners, no matter how conscientious.

In other words, a healthy chicken is a strong, resilient, stalwart creature, but even the best care does not guarantee lasting health. Like other birds, chickens are very robust, except when they aren’t.

Here are a few additional “chicken nuggets” I’ve picked up over the last three years.

There is something ineffably joyful about retrieving still-warm eggs from the nest box. Equally rewarding is the discovery that fresh eggs from backyard chickens taste nothing like the eggs you find in the supermarket.

To the inexperienced observer, chickens may look like mindless automatons motivated solely by instinct. Not so. They have unique personalities and quirks, just like cats and dogs do. In our case, boisterous, clownish Plymouth Rock Snow is not at all like timid, bottom-of-the-pecking-order Hope, a Rhode Island Red, or Hope’s fellow Rhody Nellie, who is regal, bossy and controlling.

The ONLY foolproof way to carry a chicken is by using something -- your hands, arms or chest --  to hold its wings down against its body. Otherwise, you'll be slapped silly about the face by mad flapping, and your natural instinct will be to drop the bird.

How best to avoid chasing a zigzagging escapee around the yard for what seems like an eternity? (See "foolproof way to carry a chicken," above.)

Chickens will munch on just about anything, to the point where some people joke that a chicken will eat anything that won’t eat it. They love all manner of snacks, and few things will lift your spirits more quickly than a flock hopping and squawking with glee at the sight of someone approaching with oatmeal or raspberries or lettuce or yogurt or bread or sprouts or a few fat, wriggling worms. The sight of hens splashing yogurt all over their beaks and faces is quite comical.

Chickens are nothing if not punctual, and their devotion to the rising and setting of the sun is blindly obsessive. Pity the poor human who doesn't release them from the coop precisely at dawn, or fails to notice that they cannot get into the coop precisely at dusk because the wind has blown the door shut. In either case, pandemonium will ensue, and it won’t be pretty.

You know how Chicken Little, aka Henny Penny, is convinced that the sky is falling? And how “chicken” is a synonym for someone who is afraid? And how “playing chicken” involves determining who is “cowardly” enough to swerve away from an oncoming car first, to avoid a collision? These characterizations must have been coined by chicken owners because there’s nothing easier in this world than frightening a chicken.

Yes, chickens have personalities, but their appearance, physiology and behavior make it clear that they aren’t at all like mammals. Most mammals do not lay eggs. Nor do they have wattles and combs and beaks and crops and gizzards and pencil-thin legs and dinosaur-like toes. Nor do they molt by discarding feathers annually to make room for a new batch. Nor do they flop around on the ground, giving themselves “dust baths” by using their wings to fling soil or sand all over their bodies, and looking all the while as if they’re having seizures. Oh, and as a rule, mammals don’t eat grit to aid with their digestion either.

If you have hens and you want to know which ones are truly docile, try removing one from the nest box while she’s sitting on an egg, or preparing to lay. A docile hen will squawk, but then get up and walk away. A hen with attitude will refuse to budge and she'll give you a wicked fast, no-nonsense peck on your hand that you will not soon forget. Those beaks are sharp.

If you get hens, here's hoping none of them ever becomes egg-bound, which happens when a hen has an egg stuck inside her. This can be fatal, but there are ways to try to help the egg along. One step in the process involves inserting a gloved and lubricated finger into the hen’s working end to grease the skids, as it were. Amazingly, hens tolerate the intrusion much better than you might expect. And we’ve seen it work. But I wouldn't file it under Fun With Chickens.