Hen Chronicles: On sunny spring days, Snow "does a tea cozy"

Liz and I call it the tea cozy pose. I'll explain in a moment.

During daylight hours, chickens spend most of their time on their feet . . . walking around, scratching and pecking, surveying their surroundings. Our Plymouth Rock, Snow, is no exception. But in the last year or so, she’s developed the habit of sitting down outside for a few minutes at a time, especially during the spring.

This is an eye-catching pose because Snow is motionless and her dinosaur-like feet and spindly legs become invisible, tucked as they are under her tummy while she’s seated on the ground. She resembles a tea cozy while in that pose, much like the one pictured below, except that Snow is white and, of course, much more lifelike. Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, do not sit out in the open like this, at least not that I’ve seen, perhaps because they are at least a year younger than Snow.

If anyone approaches Snow while she’s “doing a tea cozy,” as we like to say, she immediately gets up and starts begging for snacks. Which is why I haven’t been able to get a decent picture of her in these moments. But I can observe her from afar. She seems quite calm, which is, in itself, noteworthy for a chicken.

I wouldn’t claim that Snow is thinking deep thoughts when she’s “doing a tea cozy.” She is a hen, after all. But as she sits there on a sunny spring morning, gazing quietly at the world beyond the pen, I believe she truly enjoys the gentle breeze and the songs of her wild avian cousins, much as we humans do.