Once upon a time, back when I was even more naive than I am now, I thought there couldn’t possibly be a domesticated animal with a more voracious appetite than a dog.
Then we got chickens.
Our three hens go through a remarkable amount of food in the course of a day, yet they’re always clamoring for more.
Take last Sunday, for example.
When I released “the girls” from their coop at dawn, I gave them three cups of chicken feed, which is their daily ration of a cup apiece.
A few hours later, my wife Liz showed up with their late-morning serving of mealworms, plus some dandelion greens (a favorite snack). Then Liz stumbled upon a few worms while working in the garden, so the hens got yet another treat.
That afternoon, I gave Snow, Nellie and Hope more dandelion greens. Liz delivered a mid-afternoon snack of lettuce and elbow macaroni. (Yes, chickens love pasta!) I followed up with more feed, because those three cups that I served up first thing in the morning were long gone by 4 p.m.
An hour later, I brought kitchen scraps out to the compost bins, which are adjacent to the coop and pen. The hens greeted my arrival in their neighborhood with their telltale “we’re starving out here” antics, which involve much hopping, squawking, running and bouncing, supplemented by some vigorous flapping of wings. Despite all they had eaten that day, this was yet another desperate plea for still more food.
Alas, the kitchen was closed by then, which probably was for the best. One more morsel and I might have had a very messy cleanup on my hands. An exploding chicken probably scatters feathers all over the place.
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