Hen Chronicles: a few thoughts on peacocks . . . and chickens

I haven’t posted anything on this blog in close to four years, since November 2019. That’s when we lost the last members of our small flock of hens.

We haven’t acquired any chickens since then, and although I’d never say never, it’s unlikely that we will. There was joy and pleasure aplenty back then, but too much heartache and anxiety as well. In fact, our coop and pen are long gone now; the ground remains bare where they once stood. 

Yet all these years later, I still miss “the girls” very much, and have many heartwarming memories of them. That’s why I so enjoyed a quote from a book by Sean Flynn called “Why Peacocks?” I haven’t read Flynn’s book about his experience owning peacocks and I have no personal experience with those glorious creatures. But the following passage captures my attitude toward hens, based on our time with them during more than seven years of chicken keeping, from April 2012 through most of 2019.

“There is always the potential when dabbling with birds — and this no one tells you beforehand — of becoming enchanted,” Flynn writes, “and it is impossible to understand this until it happens.” Peacocks “have personalities and intelligence and foibles and charms and souls,” he writes, ‘and it all sounds ridiculous but it’s true.”

Flynn may be doing himself a disservice by describing his observations as ridiculous-sounding. If you apply his comments to chickens, for example, he’s certainly correct about the truth of them. In that case, at least, I speak from experience.

 

Hen Chronicles: Saying goodbye

It’s been quite an adventure, full of joy and mishap, wonder and heartache, contentment and aggravation.

And now it’s over.

After we joined the ranks of backyard chicken keepers back in April 2012, our tiny flock shrunk and grew and shrunk again, eventually leaving us with Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds.

Hope, who had been ill for some time, died overnight Friday or Saturday. I found her in the coop at dawn Saturday, when I went out to feed "the girls." Nellie, who always talked up a storm when she saw or heard me approach with breakfast, sat silently beside Hope’s body. For reasons which I don't need to go into, we eventually decided in the difficult hours following Hope’s death that we could not keep or save Nellie, who was euthanized later that day.

The coop is empty.

My wife Liz and I learned a lot about chickens during this chapter in our lives, but we always strove to learn more about this underappreciated species. It was an educational journey that continued until the end. We loved our hens and cherished their company, even when one or another of them slashed her comb in a freak accident that splattered blood all over the place, or became egg bound, or suffered a prolapsed oviduct (don't ask!), or grew a rooster-like leg spur that had to be filed down weekly, or needed to have a beak trimmed or a toenail clipped or a fanny washed.

We enjoyed their antics. We took pleasure in their chatter. We marveled at their beauty and intelligence, the uniqueness of their personalities, the complexity of their relationships, the mysteries of their physiology, and their ability to do something as simply magical as laying an egg.

And over the years, we grieved their loss.

Snow and Nala and Stella, our original threesome, have been gone for some time. And now Nellie and Hope, who joined us as pullets in May 2013 when they arrived together in a cardboard box via USPS, are gone as well. As Thanksgiving draws near, we are very grateful to have shared all of their lives.

Hen Chronicles: The joy of scratch

Chickens are talkative critters. Not only do they talk a lot, but they have many different things to say. In recent decades, researchers have documented more than two dozen distinct chicken vocalizations. Anyone who owns chickens is familiar with their various warning sounds, their contented clucking, and the ear-splitting squawks announcing that someone in their midst has just laid an egg.

Our two Rhode Island Reds, Nellie and Hope, aren’t quite as talkative as they once were. For one thing, they’re getting up there, so “the girls” are slowing down in various ways. If they’re still with us come January, they’ll be seven years old by then, which is a far bigger deal for a hen than it would be for a dog or a cat.

No one familiar with chickens would, upon meeting Nellie and Hope, mistake them for the proverbial spring chickens.

Still, Nellie remains more talkative than Hope, and there’s one sound, in particular, that Nellie only makes in one situation. The girls love scratch, which is a mixture of grains that are yummy but apparently not very nutritious. Processing scratch can increase a chicken’s body heat, so some experts recommend forgoing scratch in the summer, when it’s important to protect chickens from overheating.

For these reasons, I only give our hens scratch in small amounts and in cold weather, to help them warm up. So I mixed in some scratch with their regular feed first thing this morning, as I did yesterday as well. The hens must be able to smell scratch from a distance, because on both days Nellie emitted staccato, high-pitched chirps even before I unlatched the coop door to release the girls into the pen.

Nellie always “speaks” this way for scratch, but never for any other reason. Which makes me wonder what else, after all these years, I haven’t heard her say because she didn’t have just the right reason to say it.

Hen Chronicles: Enjoying their companionship, while it lasts

Keeping chickens brings its share of aggravation and heartache, perhaps even more if it involves a small flock whose members you treat as pets.

Since my wife Liz and I first acquired hens back in 2012, we have lost two chickens to disease and a third to problems stemming from age. That last death was especially difficult because it involved Snow, a boisterous Plymouth Rock who oozed personality. When I brought her to the vet to be euthanized two years ago, I held her in my arms as Snow — once so bossy and exuberant — quietly slipped away.

We have only two hens now: Nellie and Hope, Rhode Island Reds who hatched in January 2013. They, too, have seen their share of problems lately.

Hope has had a growth in her chest for several months. A veterinarian who examined her in May suspected it might be a tumor that is likely to claim her life before this coming winter is done and gone. And now we’re combating an infestation of mites that probably were introduced to ”the girls” by wild birds or other critters making their rounds in the backyard, where our coop and pen are located. We seem to be winning that battle, though.

Maybe it’s because of such problems, not despite them, that I enjoy dealing with the hens as much as I do. Nellie and Hope still love life. They’re still up to the challenge. By the time I get out to the coop at dawn, they’re at the large window on the east side, anxiously waiting for me to release them into the pen.

Both hens eagerly dig into their breakfast. Later in the day, they dance in anticipation when they see me approaching with mealworms or dandelion greens or kale or berries. Nellie has been laying eggs regularly again this year, which is somewhat unusual for a hen her age.

Whether by choice or infirmity,”the girls” don’t hop up to the roost to sleep anymore, but snuggle together in a nest box that’s really only big enough for one hen, yet somehow accommodates two. The lives of animals, like the lives of humans, are fragile, troubled and transitory. So we savor their presence, while we can.

Hen Chronicles: Hot town, summer in the city . . . .

We don’t tend to get dangerously hot summer weather here in northern New England. Ninety degrees is “wicked hot” by our standards; when the temperature rises higher than that, we really take notice.

So when temps here in central Maine hit 95 degrees one day last weekend, with a heat index of 101, I got nervous. Not about myself, but about “the girls,” Nellie and Hope, our six-year-old Rhode Island Reds. Six isn’t exactly elderly for hens, but our duo aren’t spring chickens anymore either.

I learned years ago that keeping chickens cool in the summer can be more difficult than keeping them warm in the winter. Within reasonable limits, they do a pretty good job of coping with the cold, what with all those feathers, but they have a tougher time dealing with the heat.

Thanks to some tall vegetation east of the hens' pen, it remained shaded until late morning on July 20, the day in question. At that point, I raised an old patio umbrella over the pen, to shield it from the midday sun. As the day wore on and the temperature soared ever higher, Nellie seemed to be fine, but Hope began to show signs of discomfort, and possible distress. She panted, as overheated chickens do, and hid under the raised coop. Eventually, she all but stopped moving around, for extended periods of time. I wouldn’t say she was listless, but it was quite clear she was having a very bad day.

My wife Liz and I considered moving the hens into a small backup coop that we keep in the somewhat cooler garage as a sort of intensive care unit when a hen is sick or injured and needs to be isolated. But we decided that relocation might just exacerbate Hope’s problems, by creating more anxiety.

Instead, I tried various cooling tricks, such as hosing down the pen several times, and misting the hens with a spray bottle. I placed ice in their water bowl, covered portions of the pen with plywood, emptied a large bag of ice cubes in the pen, and gave the hens chunks of watermelon (which they like), to help keep them hydrated.

As 6 p.m. rolled around, Hope remained stationary and visibly uncomfortable, and we again considered moving the hens into the garage. But suddenly, almost as if someone had flipped a switch, Hope bounced back. Her behavior returned to normal and the crisis, if that’s what it was, passed. The weather has been more seasonable since then, and she has not shown renewed signs of stress from the heat.

But what of the future? As climate change worsens and our weather becomes ever more extreme and erratic, the human race won’t be the only affected species. We'd have to be blind not to realize that the denizens of the animal kingdom, including our pets and livestock, will suffer as well.