Hen Chronicles: They really know what they like to eat

Experts claim that chickens have no taste buds, as opposed to humans, who supposedly have, on average, 10,000 of them.

I’m no expert on taste buds, avian or human, but if the implication is that chickens have no preferences among various types of foods, our three hens never got the memo.

My wife Liz and I know, from several years of experience, that hens like their regular feed well enough, especially first thing in the morning. But they positively love a range of treats, including berries (blue, straw and rasp), as well as plain yogurt.

And scratch.

Scratch is a mix of corn and grains that is used as a snack. Digesting it generates body heat, so it should only be fed when it’s cold outside, to avoid overheating chickens.

I give our hens scratch during the winter months because the heat produced during digestion helps to warm them up. As a rule, I wait until the temperature drops below 30 degrees. But rules are made to be broken, and that’s what I did this morning, when the deck thermometer read 35 degrees as I headed out to the coop at dawn.

One of our three hens is coming off her molt. The other two have just started this annual ritual of dropping feathers to make way for new ones. Those two now have bald spots here and there, where new feathers are beginning to emerge, which may explain why they had no desire to leave the relative warmth of the coop early this morning and head out into the pen for breakfast.

That’s where the scratch came in.

Shaking a small cup of the stuff at the open coop door had the desired effect. Nellie and Hope immediately made a high-pitched sound that indicates excitement. They hopped down from the roost and raced out the door. When I scattered scratch in the pen, they joined Snow, our third hen, in running around to make sure they got their share.

Soon enough, scratch will become a regular seasonal snack rather than a rare October treat. So will oatmeal, another wintertime favorite. Snow, Nellie and Hope may lack taste buds, but somehow “the girls” still know which items top the menu.