Hen Chronicles: To everything - turn, turn, turn

The off-season has arrived.

Shorter days mean fewer hours of daylight, and in our coop, which has no electric lights, that means a dramatic drop in egg production. Snow, Nellie and Hope laid a mere 20 eggs in October, compared to 45 in September, and that number is likely to fall even lower in the months ahead. If last winter is any indication, “the girls” may stop laying altogether for a spell.

I see this as part of the natural order of things, not as a problem requiring a solution. Lighting the coop to create the illusion of longer days is a proven way to keep hens laying. But our hens work hard during the spring and summer, so I figure they deserve a break during the cold-weather months, if they need one. That is, after all, how they are designed. Let them work — or not — according to the manufacturer’s specifications.

To deceive the hens with electrical chicanery reminds me of those TV spots from the 1970s in which Mother Nature, angry that she has been tricked into believing margarine is butter, unleashes thunder and lightning to accentuate her fearsome reprimand: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” (Never mind that Mother Nature was fooled. You get the idea.)

Anyway, even if I decided to light the coop, it wouldn’t do any good in the short term. Snow, our white Plymouth Rock, has been molting for about three weeks now, and continues to drop feathers every day as new ones grow in. Now Hope, one of our two Rhode Island Reds, has begun to molt as well. She’s smaller than she used to be, thanks to the temporary disappearance of her tail feathers. Every morning, the coop is littered with white and rust-colored feathers (in addition to the inevitable overnight deposits of you-know-what).

Feathers, like eggs, are largely comprised of protein and a hen only has enough of the stuff to tackle one task at a time. So a chicken that needs new feathers ASAP shifts gears, from crafting eggs to making a suit of clothes.

Shorter days and balding chickens. As the holidays draw ever closer, ’tis the season for many things. But homegrown eggs may not be among them.