Hen Chronicles: Chickens bring joy, even in winter

At this time of year here in northern New England, caring for chickens is a bit of a chore, especially for a newbie such as myself.

First, there’s the task of getting out to the coop during a snowstorm, which requires repeatedly shoveling a lengthy path, as I did on Thursday. Then there’s the matter of keeping the outdoor run (relatively) free of snow. This involves, in my case anyway, placing two long pieces of plywood atop the pen and covering them with a tarp. I then top the perimeter of the tarp with bricks and pieces of firewood, to hold the tarp in place when the wind kicks up. Low boards are propped around the base of the pen, to try to keep the snow from blowing in.
 
The well-built coop, with its wooden walls, metal roof and ample clean bedding on the floor, remains dry no matter what Mother Nature brings. I’ve even tossed a saddle blanket over the roof, and banked the outside of the coop with bags of leaves, to provide a bit of insulation. Still, questions nag at me when the mercury drops and the snow flies. Are the hens warm enough at night? (So far, yes.) Do they show any signs of frostbite on their combs or wattles? (So far, no.) Should I be doing more than I have to shield them from the cold? (I know. They're birds. Birds have feathers. Feathers insulate. And yet . . . .)

Then, in the midst of my shoveling and tarp laying and worrying, “the girls” remind me that they’re well worth the trouble. Shoveling my way out to the coop yet again on Friday morning, I removed the snow-covered tarp to let the sun shine into the pen. I then peered into the nest box in the coop and spotted a fresh egg. Very fresh. When I picked it up and wrapped my fingers around it, the heat from the egg was strong enough to permeate my wet, snowy glove, and I felt its warmth on my palm.

Hen Chronicles: Christmas morning with "the girls"

Heading out to the coop to care for our chickens at dawn on Christmas morning, I was enveloped by a sense of calm and serenity.

It was a chilly 20 degrees outside at 7 a.m. yesterday but there was no wind, so I was quite comfortable in my winter togs. The neighborhood is always quiet on Christmas Day, but the silence was even more pervasive in our large (by city standards) backyard than out on the street that fronts the house.

Once I had placed the hens’ food bowl and water dish in their outdoor pen, I opened the coop door. As Snow and Nala emerged and hopped down the ramp into the pen, I gave each of them a gentle pat on the back. Before heading back into the house, I talked to "the girls" for a moment, and admired their plumage as they alternated between pecking away at their feed and peering up at me in that oddly intense way that chickens have.

Amid all of the noise, hoopla, excess and zaniness of the holiday season, this sliver of tranquility was brief, but glorious.

Hen Chronicles: And then there were only two

Stella

And then there were two.

One of our three chickens died last Friday: Stella, our New Hampshire Red, who was less than two years old. We don't know what happened, really. From what I've been reading, it's not all that uncommon for seemingly healthy chickens to die for no obvious reason.

Stella was hunkered down, alone, in the open area under the coop that morning, which was unusual. I was worried, but not wanting to panic, I tried to convince myself that she was stressed out because she'd been molting and she didn't have all of her new feathers yet.

Later that morning, I found her lying down with her legs stretched out behind her, which is a very disconcerting pose I've never seen before in a live chicken and I hope never to see again. She kept opening and closing her mouth, as if she was having trouble breathing. She tried to stand up, but couldn’t.

I went into the house to call my wife at work, and when I came back out about five minutes later, Stella was gone. Despite the season, I was able to bury her in the yard, thanks to our recent spate of relatively warm weather here in Maine.

It's hard to tell how the other two hens feel about this. Chickens are very social animals, and our mini-flock has been a trio ever since we bought all three hens from the same seller in April. At least Nala and Snow still have each other. (Knock on wood.) When I locked up the coop Friday night, the two of them were side by side on the roost, snuggled up together.
 
I suppose we humans don't have the same relationship with hens that we have with cats and dogs because chickens don't live in our homes and it's easier to anthropomorphize mammals than birds. Chickens are livestock, after all. But for some of us, they are pets as well. We love them. And we mourn their loss.

Stella was a beautiful girl. About a month after we bought the hens, I described her in a post as "quiet, tranquil and friendly." I wrote then that Stella "welcomes contact with humans, and seems to enjoy being held. She even carries herself with something resembling dignity, if that word can be applied to a hen."

We all know death is a part of life. Gail Damerow writes in The Chicken Encyclopedia that “chickens can die at any age - sometimes suddenly - of natural causes.” But knowing that doesn’t make the parting any easier. Even if the pet we’ve lost is, as I’m sure some people would callously put it, “only a chicken.”
  

Hen Chronicles: Trapped by the winter weather

We’re always being told to be careful what we wish for, because it might come true. The old saying suggests that our strongest desires, however attractive they may seem initially, can carry hidden pitfalls.

Apparently the same applies to chickens.

When I went out to feed our three hens at noon the other day, sub-freezing temperatures and a stiff wind made for an unpleasant combination. So it was no real surprise that the girls had left their wire pen and gone back into their coop. They normally stay out of the coop during the daytime except to lay their eggs, but they probably made an exception this time to get out of the wind.

Trouble is, their quest for shelter carried unintended consequences. Nala, Stella and Snow managed to get away from the wind, all right, only to find themselves stuck in the coop for God knows how long after the wind blew the door shut behind them.

As it happens, the girls were none the worse for wear when I opened the coop door, but they sure seemed glad to get back out into the open air. The wind, notwithstanding.

Hen Chronicles: For Nala, the molt comes to an end

For a while, there, I wasn’t sure I’d live to see it: Nala, our Barred Rock hen, fully feathered once again.

When Nala went into her molt several weeks ago, I wasn’t exactly shocked. I’d read up on this annual denuding of chickens, which occurs when they lose their feathers, usually in the fall. But I was appalled nonetheless, partly because I’d never seen a chicken molt before and partly because our other hens - Snow and Stella - were not going through this indignity . . . yet.

First, Nala’s fanny feathers fell out - all of them - leaving her with a bare tush. Then, just as tiny new butt feathers began to emerge, her neck went bare. As feathers fell from a wing or her breast, new ones popped out on her head or her back.

She looked like a stuffed toy that had been partially destroyed by a roughhousing terrier, and she obviously was uncomfortable, shying away from the other hens and peering up at her humans as if she expected us to set things right.

But now, as the truly cold weather begins to set in, Nala is her old self once again. Or, I should say, her old self clad in brand new togs, to keep her warm during the months ahead. She’s fluffy and beautiful, with no bare spots and a renewed sense of self-confidence. 

Hen Chronicles: "The girls' get an early taste of winter

I don’t know if our hens spent much time outside last winter, because we bought them in April. But after we had our first snowfall of the season Wednesday night, they seemed to be both perplexed and angry.

I had to scrape about two inches of the white stuff off the roof of the coop and clear off the tarp-and-plywood covering atop the pen first thing Thursday morning, when below-freezing temps and a very stiff wind made the process especially unpleasant. By then, the snow had turned to rain, adding to the gloom.

When I finally got around to opening the door that leads from the coop to the pen, the girls did not burst forth with their usual zany enthusiasm. Instead, they peeked out of the coop and tentatively set foot on the ramp, as if they weren’t at all sure that leaving their snug overnight lodgings was such a good idea.

A few minutes later, I propped open the roof of the coop to scoop out the previous night’s poop deposits. Nala, our normally sedate Barred Rock, sauntered into the coop from the pen and began squawking loudly while cocking her head and peering up at me as I cleaned the bedding.

Nala may have been telling me to get the hell out so she could lay an egg. But I think it’s more likely that she was using profanity-laden chicken lingo to express the same reaction to the weather that I had when I first got up yesterday morning and pulled the curtain aside to see Mother Nature’s idea of an early November joke.
  

Hen Chronicles: Perfecting the worm toss takes practice

Like any sport, the earthworm toss takes practice. At least, if you really want to perfect it.

I was digging up one of our compost bins the other day, so I could dump some into a garden bed before planting garlic there. With almost every shovelful, I turned up one or two worms that seemed to be semi-comatose, now that fall has arrived here in central Maine.

The compost bins are only a few feet from our chicken coop and run, and the girls were keeping a close eye on my work. As any chicken owner knows, hens will eat just about anything, but they do have their preferences, and earthworms are on the short list.

At first, I walked over to the wire run whenever I found a worm and dropped into the pen, but that really slowed things down on the composting front. So I quickly decided to simply toss worms into the pen, from a distance of about 6 or 7 feet.

The first toss fell just short of the pen, causing a frenzy of activity as the girls tried to reach the worm. So close, and yet so far. The second toss overshot the pen, sending the hens scurrying to the far side of the run, where, clucking angrily, they all bobbed around in a vain quest to get the worm.

Finally, on the third try, I got the range right. The worm plopped into the pen, where its life was quickly snuffed out by Snow, our bossy white hen. More tosses followed, all of which hit the target.

Those worms may have met a cruel end but, thanks to the girls’ gluttony, they didn’t suffer for long. In fact, I haven’t seen the hens that excited since they dug into their last helping of blueberries.

Hen Chronicles: Obsessing over Hurricane Sandy

In typical fashion, I got my knickers in a twist a few days back, worrying about how our three hens would fare when Hurricane Sandy finally struck on the night of Oct. 29. Would their small coop be buffeted by powerful gusts or, heaven forbid, knocked over? Would wind-driven rains pour into the coop through the two windows I leave open on warm nights? Should I close one of the windows, even though overnight ventilation is said to be important for chickens?

After all, my wife Liz and I, not to mention our cats and dogs, would be toasty and dry in the house, no matter how nasty it got outside. The chickens, on the other hand, would be holed up overnight in a freestanding coop far from the house at the back end of our lot, leaving them isolated and vulnerable to the elements.

As it happens, Sandy turned out to be a bit of a bust by the time she worked her way up here to central Maine: light winds, few gusts and relatively little rain. So the girls (and their coop) emerged just fine, although they did appear to be a bit grumpy the morning after the storm.

I toyed with the idea of rewarding the hens by getting chicken-sized T-shirts emblazoned with something like: “I clucked my way through the frankenstorm of 2012." But I think I’d have a hard time getting their wings into the sleeves.
  

Hen Chronicles: These eggs are the real deal

Even a little kid knows the difference between bland store-bought eggs and the more savory offerings of well-cared-for chickens that get plenty of exercise, fresh air, attention and treats.

My wife Liz occasionally gives eggs to a co-worker who’s five-year-old daughter Lily has met our three hens and hopes to get chickens of her own some day. Whenever her mom brings some of our eggs home, Lily is quick to provide her uniquely worded stamp of approval. “These eggs come from real chickens,” she says.

Hen Chronicles: My first molt (well, not mine, exactly)

Nala, our beautiful Barred Rock hen, began littering the coop and pen with fanny feathers a few weeks ago, until her backside was completely bare.

The dreaded molt had begun. 
We’ve only had our girls since April and chickens generally molt in the late summer or early fall. So although I had read about this annual ritual, seeing a molt in the flesh - quite literally, when you’re staring at a chicken with a bald butt - is something else entirely.

The Chicken Encyclopedia, by Gail Damerow, defines a molt as “the periodic shedding and renewal of feathers.” Damerow writes, as do other experts, that the molt occurs “in a specific sequence, starting at the head and neck and gradually working toward the tail.”

One thing I’ve learned during my six months of chicken parenthood is that hens sometimes ignore the claims of experts, probably because chickens can’t read so they don’t know what is expected of them. In Nala’s case, for example, it was the fanny feathers that dropped out first.

Initially, being a fretter, I worried that Nala’s reversal of the normal molting sequence meant this was no ordinary molt, and that something was amiss. It didn’t help matters any that Nala’s personality changed during all this. (Yes, chickens do have individual personalities.) She seemed distracted and a bit dazed, staring up at me with a confused look in her eye whenever I checked on her.

Thus began the fanny watch.

Every day I scrutinized Nala’s butt (from a distance, I might add) hoping to spot the telltale signs of emerging feathers, but there were none.

Then, finally, after a week or so, neat rows of bluish-black “quills” appeared on her bum. Except that they weren’t really quills at all, but rolled up feathers that were not long enough yet to open up. The aforementioned experts write that emerging feathers look like porcupine quills until they expand, so I finally knew Nala was on the right track.

For whatever reason, Snow and Stella, the other hens, have shown no signs of molting so far. Maybe they’re on a delayed schedule, or maybe they’re somewhat younger than Nala, and so are not old enough to start molting yet.

The latter would be fine by me. I’ve read that a chicken has something like 8,500 feathers, so Nala may have a ways to go yet before she’s fully decked out in her new duds. At least she won’t be running around with a bare bottom that made her look (heaven forbid) like she was ready for the oven.

Hen Chronicles: Snow gets a hankering for eggs

I caught her in the act. That’s what happened to Snow the other day when I lifted the lid on the nest box where the girls lay their eggs. Sometimes I catch a hen in mid lay when I peek into the box, but not this time. Snow, our raucous, bossy white hen, was standing over a shattered egg shell, gleefully wolfing down the contents as if she hadn’t eaten in a week.

She even had a telltale bit of yolk on her beak, leaving no doubt about what she’d been up to.

I discovered quite a while back that someone in the coop has been chomping on the occasional egg, but the incidents are so rare that I figured only one of the three hens was involved. Now the culprit’s been caught red-handed, or perhaps I should say yellow-beaked.

And she shows no remorse.

When I opened the lid and found Snow in mid snack that day, she simply looked up at me for a second and then resumed her munching, until I scooped up what was left of the egg and tossed it into the compost.

What to do with the wayward Snow? I can’t very well send her to her room, because the coop is her room. Nor can I assign her to do chores around the coop as punishment for her infraction; no amount of prodding will persuade a chicken to pick up after herself. I did give her a good talking to, but there’s probably no better way to illustrate the term “wasted breath” than to picture a deluded guy lecturing a gloriously indifferent chicken.

Hen Chronicles: Fewer eggs as the days grow shorter

I knew it was coming. But it still takes some getting used to.

After cranking out two to three eggs daily for several months, our three hens have slowed down, sometimes going eggless for an entire day before producing only one or two eggs among them the following day.

Stella, Nala and Snow aren’t sick, or at least they don’t appear to be. The experts say this is a seasonal change, and par for the course as the days grow shorter. A hen is said to need a lot of daylight for the rather laborious process of producing an egg, and the lengthening nights are cutting into that quite a bit.

“Most hens stop laying in the winter, not because the weather turns cold, but because daylight hours are shorter in winter than in summer,” says The Chicken Encyclopedia, by Gail Damerow. “When the number of daylight hours falls below 14, without controlling lighting hens may stop laying until spring.”

Chickens are very attentive to the rising and setting of the sun. When dawn breaks, the girls are up and at ‘em, like feathered wind-up dolls. And when the sun sets, they troop into their coop without fail and with no prodding, hopping up onto the roost for the night.

So the arrival of fall has messed with their internal clocks, which govern the laying process. At summer’s peak, the girls were up until 8:30 p.m. or so, but now they head into the coop about two hours sooner. I’m sure their bedtime will start even earlier in the day, once winter sets in.

You can boost egg production in the cold-weather months by installing a light in the coop, to create the illusion of longer days. Some owners say the best time to turn on the light is early in the morning. Others prefer lighting the coop for a while at dusk. And some split the difference, opting to provide a bit of artificial light in the morning and more at night.

I’ve toyed with the idea of lighting our coop to keep the eggs coming more regularly, but it seems wrong, almost cruel, to me -  a case of unwarranted meddling with mother nature. The hens worked hard day in and day out during the summer, producing eggs with amazing frequency and regularity. Instead of treating them like mere machines by tricking them with a light bulb, I think they deserve a rest, so their bodies can dictate what lies - or lays - ahead.

Hen Chronicles: Treat options narrow as dandelions fade

Every morning, just after the crack of dawn, I head out to the coop to give Snow, Stella and Nala fresh water and a bowl of feed, which they always gobble down quickly, and with gusto.

But that doesn’t satisfy them. And I know why. 

Snow's after-breakfast squawking reminds me that she and her pals haven't had their morning salad yet and she’s none too pleased by the delay. So I scrounge the yard for tufts of grass and dandelion greens (we are expert dandelion growers) to give to the girls.

The racket doesn’t let up until I toss a handful of greens into the pen. At that point, all three girls set to chowing down once again, as if they’ve already forgotten that they knocked off a bowl of feed only moments earlier.

There’s no doubt that grass clippings and dandelion leaves are among the hens’ favorite foods, so it may be a long, hard winter for them here in Maine, when both of these treats will disappear. Of course, being omnivorous, the girls also like such supermarket staples as lettuce, apples, tomatoes and yogurt. So I’m sure we’ll manage to scare up a few acceptable substitutes. Even when the yard is buried in snow.

Hen Chronicles: Girls, meet your fearsome cousin: T. rex

Everyone with even a passing interest in zoology knows that researchers believe birds are descended from dinosaurs. But I have to admit I was amazed to learn, after we acquired our three hens back in April, that chickens are said to be the closest living relatives of - get this - the fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex.

"Analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein - along with that of 21 modern species and an extinct mastodon - confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with birds, particularly chickens and ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators," the British newspaper The Telegraph reported a few years ago. Studies published in the journal Science "conclude that seven traces of proteins detected in purified T. rex bone most closely match those reported in chickens," USA Today reported back in 2007.

Now, I find it easy enough to believe that birds in general, and chickens in particular, trace their roots to dinosaurs. You only have to get an up-close peek at a chicken’s shanks and long-toed feet to realize that they do look decidedly prehistoric.

But T. rex’s cousin? That seems like a stretch.

According to nationalgeographic.com, Tyrannosaurus rex "was one of the largest meat-eating dinosaurs that ever lived. Everything about this ferocious predator, from its thick, heavy skull to its 4-foot-long (1.2-meter-long) jaw, was designed for maximum bone-crushing action." The site says T. rex was about 40 feet long and about 15 to 20 feet tall. Its strong thighs and long, powerful tail helped it move quickly, and its massive 5-foot-long skull could bore into prey.

"T. rex's serrated, conical teeth were most likely used to pierce and grip flesh, which it then ripped away with its brawny neck muscles. Its two-fingered forearms could probably seize prey, but they were too short to reach its mouth." Scientists believe this powerful predator could eat up to 500 pounds of meat “in one bite,” breaking bones as it did so.

Contrast that with our yogurt-loving, apple-chomping trio of clowns, who act for all the world like they’re polishing up a slapstick routine for their big comedy club debut. Snow, Stella and Nala don’t have an intimidating bone in their small, feathered bodies, unless you’re frightened by one of them pecking at an exposed human toe to see if it’s edible.

Chickens don’t even have any teeth, for crying out loud, let alone conical teeth to "pierce and grip flesh."

Still, Barney, the purple and green dinosaur, is a T. rex, right? Wikipedia says that Barney "likes many different foods such as fruits and vegetables, but his main favorite is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk." He also loves "marching bands and parades." Maybe he’s the long-lost dinosaur cousin researchers are talking about.

Hen Chronicles: Who's wolfing down the goodies?

I’m calling it the Case of the Missing Eggs.

Ever since our three hens first got a taste of egg when one broke in their pen, an occasional egg has disappeared from their midst. A patch of soggy bedding with bits of shell mixed in is all the evidence I need that at least one of the girls has been feasting on forbidden goodies.

The good news, such as it is, is that not all of our chickens are chowing down on eggs. In fact, it seems as though only one of the girls is partaking, and only occasionally at that.

One day recently, for example, the hens laid two eggs, both of which I found intact. The same thing happened the next day. But the day after that, the girls laid three eggs, only two of which were undamaged. Not so the third one, which someone gobbled up, leaving behind the telltale shell bits mentioned above.

This leads me to suspect that only one of the hens is purloining eggs, and only her own at that. If two or three hens were noshing, more eggs would disappear more often. The same would be true if even one hen was routinely eating all of the eggs she could find.

Still, the problem remains. What to do? When someone else posted that question at backyardchickens.com, folks had plenty of suggestions, but offered no guarantees.

One idea (which I’m trying even as you read this) is to put wooden eggs in the nest box where the hens lay their eggs, so the offender, thinking the decoys are the real deal, will get a sore beak from biting into a chunk of wood. The theory is that will dissuade her from pecking at real eggs in the future. (I think I hear chickens laughing in the background, but maybe it’s my imagination.)

Other ideas include collecting eggs as quickly as possible to eliminate temptation; giving hens crushed oyster shells (which I already include in their diet) to assure that they get enough calcium without eating eggs; and allowing an egg-munching chicken to free range, so she won’t eat eggs out of boredom. You can even insert hot sauce into a hollowed out egg and then put it back into the nest box. (A bit sadistic-sounding, that one.)

All of these suggestions may have merit, but there was one reader-submitted idea at backyardchickens.com that I refuse to consider. When asked how to stop a hen from eating eggs, someone responded, perhaps tongue in beak: “With a hatchet.”

Hen Chronicles: There's a whole lot a shakin' goin' on

One of the reasons chickens are so entertaining is because their abrupt, disjointed head and neck movements have a wonderful cartoon-like quality. Whoever designed an animal that combines the features of a Whac-A-Mole (minus the whacking, of course) and a bobblehead doll had to have a great sense of humor.

Although chickens walk around gracefully enough, they simultaneously bob up and down with a goofy staccato rhythm, especially when they’re excited by the realization that their waiter (to wit, me), is about to deliver a meal.

In the case of our three hens, this is especially obvious when I head out to release them from their coop first thing in the morning. Thanks to the fact that there’s a small window in the front of the coop, Snow, Stella and Nala can see me coming from a distance, and they know that means breakfast is only minutes away.

As I approach the coop, individual heads pop into the window, in rapid succession. Snow hops up, and then disappears. She is immediately replaced by Nala, who just as quickly drops from sight. A second later, Stella’s head jerks into view, then she is gone.

This process will repeat itself a dozen times or more in the course of one minute. And if the hens work themselves into a real food frenzy, two of them may commandeer the window together, but only for a few seconds until the solitary pop-ups resume.

It’s as if an old Looney Tunes cartoon has come to life. Foghorn Leghorn would feel right at home.

Hen Chronicles: They're smarter than you might think

Conventional wisdom has it that chickens, to put it politely, are not the smartest birds in the flock. Some owners claim, for example, that their chickens don’t even have enough sense to get in out of the rain. This has never been an issue for our three hens, who dash into or under their coop at the mere sight of a raindrop.

From time to time since we got Snow, Stella and Nala more than four months ago, I’ve seen other signs that Gallus domesticus may be smarter than its reputation would suggest. Take what happened Sunday afternoon, for example, when I decided to give the roost in their coop a quick scrub with a wet brush and a dry rag.

The best way to get at the roost in our small henhouse is to lift the hinged roof and prop it open. I can then reach into the coop and do whatever needs to be done, whether it’s scooping out poop, adding shavings for bedding or - in this case - cleaning the elevated wooden roost that stretches across the coop from front to back.

It’s important during these chores to keep the ever-curious hens out of the coop. Although they can’t fly very far or very well, they could certainly “fly the coop” through the open roof, if given half a chance.

To prevent that from happening on Sunday, I tossed a handful of dandelion greens and grass clippings into the wire pen that is attached to the coop. Once the hens were preoccupied with munching outside, I closed the small door leading from the pen into the coop, to keep them out of the coop during my ministrations.

I didn’t give the girls another thought until I lowered the coop’s roof after I finished cleaning the roost. Walking around to the front of the coop so I could reopen the coop door, I noticed that all three hens had stopped chowing down on their clippings, which is highly unusual because greens of any kind are among their favorite foods.

Instead, the hens were standing in front of the coop, staring at the closed door and clucking animatedly in what sounded to me like expressions of concern. They knew something was amiss because the door was closed when it normally is open. As soon as I reopened the door, the girls turned away from the coop and resumed eating. Order had been restored, so they were happy.

That doesn’t make them Mensa material. But it does suggest that chickens are more aware of changes in their surroundings than the average TV-addicted, iPhone-addled human being is.

Hen Chronicles: Developing a taste for (their own) eggs

Are our three hens about to become cannibals?

During our four months of chicken ownership, Nala, Stella, and Snow have never eaten any of the two to three eggs they lay daily.

Until last Thursday.

When I went out to feed the girls that morning, I found an intact egg on the ground at the front of the pen, some six feet from the coop, where the hens normally lay their eggs in a nest box.

The only opening into the pen is a wooden lid at the back, where the pen abuts the coop. So there was no way to reach into the pen to retrieve the egg by hand, because it was too far away from that access point.

Grabbing a stick, I poked it through the wire enclosure with the idea of slowly rolling the egg toward the opening, so I could then grab the egg. Of course, the stick smashed the egg almost immediately. That's when all three hens raced to the scene of the crime, where they hungrily gobbled up the evidence.

Will the hens now add a new menu item to their diet, thereby destroying our egg supply? The egg in question sat, unmolested, in the pen until I accidentally broke it, so maybe the girls will ignore their own delicacies so long as they remain in the shell. Or will they take matters into their own beaks and start breaking into freshly laid eggs with impunity?

Here’s hoping that does not prove to be the case, but there are grounds for concern. “Once chickens find out how good eggs taste, they break them on purpose to eat them,” according to The Chicken Encyclopedia.

Maybe the girls didn’t get enough of a taste to turn them into egg-chomping fiends. They behaved themselves on Friday and Saturday, but as with so many of life’s questions, only time will provide a long-term answer. I just hope they don't start ordering up eggs Benedict.

Hen Chronicles: They'll eat just about anything

When a neighbor gave us a bag of cherry tomatoes from her garden recently, my thoughts turned, as they so often do, to our chickens.

I immediately offered up a dozen eggs in exchange. Then I asked myself a perennial question, one that always begins with "can chickens eat . . . ." In this case, the food in question was tomatoes, which I had never fed to our hens.

A quick check of an online owners' forum revealed that it is safe to give tomatoes to chickens, who love the fruit. Sure enough, when I tossed three cherry tomatoes into the pen, Snow, Stella and Nala attacked them with gusto.

The girls aren’t accustomed to smooth, round fruit that rolls around on the ground, as if it were trying to elude them. But it only took the hens a few seconds to realize that the key to capturing a rambling tomato is to pierce it with your beak. Needless to say, the tomatoes quickly disappeared.

Most of the folks who posted comments online regarding the safety of feeding tomatoes to chickens confined themselves to answering that specific question. But one owner with a sense of humor offered a more sweeping response that addressed the generally omnivorous habits of chickens. “If it doesn’t eat chickens,” she wrote, “chickens will eat it!”
  

Hen Chronicles: Feed them and they're happy

When my wife Liz and I dashed off to a summer rental on the coast of Maine last week for some R & R, the dogs tagged along but the cats and chickens stayed behind.

I know all four cats missed us while we were gone, even though a friend popped in periodically to care for them. They acted reproachfully when we got back, as if to say: "How could you abandon us like that without so much as a note explaining when you'd return?"

But I didn't know what to expect from the hens; we'd never left them for such a long period of time before. Another friend catered to their needs while we were away, and now the answer is in. Chickens are not cats. They couldn't have cared less that we were gone. As long as someone - anyone - brought them food and water on time, it made no difference to them who did the serving.

That's a humbling revelation for a mere human such as myself, but I'm trying to take it in stride. It just goes to show that there's not much point in greeting chickens at breakfast by saying: "Hello, my name is Paul, and I'll be your server for today."