Hen Chronicles: "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Chickens must have little panic buttons in their noodles, because it’s so damn easy to scare the dickens out of them. The thing of it is, it can be hard to predict what will trigger those alarm bells. It seems to vary from one bird to the next, and sometimes from day to day.

Some reactions are predictable. In my experience, it’s generally a safe bet that loud noises or sudden movements in close proximity to our coop will send all three hens scurrying. Snow, Nellie and Hope also try to escape if our chocolate lab Aquinnah comes into view, but they remain perfectly calm if pit bull mix Martha shows up.

So far so good. But what about mirrors?

We have a five-inch-by-five-inch mirror attached to the pen because chickens, like some other birds, seem to enjoy studying their reflection. Experts in such things claim this is a good way to prevent confined hens from becoming bored. It would be unsafe to allow our hens to run free on our city lot, so I bought a mirror for "the girls."

The mirror normally faces inward, but sometimes the wind flips it around, so the chickens can only see the back of it. That’s just what happened one day recently, so while the hens were munching on mealworms, I slowly walked around to the far side of the pen and turned the mirror. 

Nellie ignored this, but Snow and Hope went nuts. Snow ran around the pen as if under attack by some invisible assailant. Then she and Hope hopped/flew into the coop, only to turn around and head right back out into the pen. Hope settled down at that point, but Snow squawked excitedly for a few more seconds. Then she too went back to snacking quietly, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. The reaction to the “crisis” was intense, but it lasted no more than 60 seconds or so.

Three questions arise. That mirror has been hanging from the pen for months, so why did Snow and Hope start screaming "the sky is falling!" this time around? Why didn't Nellie join in? And why did the panic end as suddenly as it began? 

The chicken brain: It may be a small organ, but it can be mighty mystifying. Just ask Chicken Little.