Hen Chronicles: Smart birds pulling dumb stunts

I’ve learned at least two things about chickens since they took up residence in our yard back in April 2012. They’re smarter than people usually give them credit for, but they sometimes do a pretty good job of hiding their intelligence.

No doubt about it, chickens have a lot going on in their little noggins. Our hens are very social creatures. They constantly talk to one another (and to us), using a wide range of vocalizations. They know with great precision when it’s snack time, and how to stage end runs to gain better access to treats. They are curious about the world around them, enjoy being near people, and become visibly upset when separated from one another. They have the good sense to stay out of the rain, and they avoid walking in the snow whenever possible.

It’s claimed that chickens recognize people, and can differentiate among human faces. I don’t doubt it.

“Leading animal behavior scientists from around the globe know that chickens are inquisitive and interesting animals whose cognitive abilities are in some cases more advanced than those of cats, dogs, and even some primates,” according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. “Chickens comprehend cause-and-effect relationships and understand that objects still exist even after they are hidden from view. In this respect, they are more cognitively advanced than small human children.”

As Christine Nicol of the Division of Animal Health and Husbandry at the University of Bristol in Great Britain put it last year, studies of chickens over the last two decades have revealed their “finely-honed sensory capacities, their ability to think, draw inferences, apply logic and plan ahead.”

So how to explain the following?

On a warm and sunny day recently, all three of our hens remained holed up in the coop for most of the day, only coming out into the pen to eat. But the following day, which was cold, raw and wet, they hung out in the pen for hours on end, despite a near-constant drizzle. Granted, the pen was covered by a tarp most of that time, but the coop would have been much cozier. 

And then there’s this. At dawn on Dec. 8, it was seven degrees outside here in Augusta, Maine. After the hens had their breakfast in the pen, Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, simply stood around, motionless, instead of retreating into the coop. As for Snow, our all-white Plymouth Rock, she decided to sit down on the frozen ground, where she remained for more than five minutes. (From a distance, Snow looked like a mound of, well, snow.) At first, I thought she was sick, but no. For whatever reason, that’s just where she wanted to be.

As I tried to sort out why supposedly intelligent creatures engage in such antics, it occurred to me that maybe chickens aren’t as smart as their keepers assume. Then a more likely explanation came to mind.

We've all seen teenagers outside in the winter months wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Or sandals! So even intelligent life forms do stupid stuff. At least my hens wear down coats when they venture out at this time of year.

Hen Chronicles: When hens turn into cartoon characters

Ah, the joys of watching a chicken molt.

Nellie, one of our Rhode Island Reds, now has a spotty covering of feathers as she goes through the process of casting off the old and bringing in the new. She’s fully "clothed" in some areas but shabby and balding in others, like someone emerging from a crazed barber's shop sporting the world’s worst haircut.

At dawn yesterday, Nellie pushed past the other hens when I opened the coop door, ran down to the pen and vigorously flapped her wings in what always strikes me as the chicken equivalent of a human's early-morning stretch. This caused a past-its-prime feather to fly off her body as if it had been shot into the air. The long, rust-colored feather floated lazily to the ground.

For that brief moment, Nellie looked quite cartoonish, like a frightened hen in a comic strip, scattering feathers in its wake as it scurries to evade some imaginary predator.

Hen Chronicles: Coping with winter in a sensible fashion

At dawn on Saturday, Snow, Nellie and Hope trooped out of the coop and into the pen for breakfast. Although I had covered the pen with a tarp, “the girls” were far from oblivious to the wintry weather, and with good reason.

It was 25 degrees outside, which isn’t horribly chilly by chicken standards, but cold enough nonetheless. At least two inches of snow had fallen overnight. The sky was spitting sleet. The local police department had posted on its Facebook page that drivers should be very cautious because of slick roads. And the TV weather gurus were blathering on about what they like to call a “wintry mix.”

The forecast called for rain, freezing rain, and sleet before 1 p.m., followed by rain between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., then rain, possibly mixed with sleet, after 5 p.m. (For some reason, all that the talk of rain followed by rain followed by more rain reminded me of the Monty Python bit about the café whose menu included Spam, Spam, Spam, egg and Spam.) The chance of precipitation for the day was 100 percent.

If life's a bowl of cherries, Saturday was shaping up as the exception that proves the rule.

Having finished their breakfast, the hens marched back into the coop, hopped up onto the roost, and went back to bed. It was a perfectly sensible response to the gray, wet, chilly gloom that had greeted them outside. In fact, humans would praise one another for having the good sense to do precisely the same thing on such a dismal Saturday morning. Why, then, is a “birdbrain” defined as someone who’s a few bricks shy of a load?

Hen Chronicles: The weather outside is frightful

This is not the easiest time of year to be keeping chickens in Maine. Nor, for that matter, is it the easiest time of year to be a chicken in Maine.

I’ve read, and confirmed through personal observation, that chickens have what it takes to cope with almost anything that winter throws at them (although frostbite can be a problem).  The experts say it's harder to keep chickens cool in summer than warm in winter. We’re now heading into our third winter with hens out in the backyard, and during that time, I’ve seen them troop out of the coop for breakfast at dawn when it was as cold as 15 below zero.

Chickens are hardy souls. But they aren’t immune to the cold, and it’s clear from watching their behavior that they’re a heck of a lot more comfortable on a balmy morning in May or a crisp autumn afternoon than they are when the frigid, merciless world takes on various shades of gray and the mercury struggles to nose up to the freezing mark.

Last week, an early storm dumped 11 inches of heavy, wet snow here in Augusta. When I shoveled my way back to the coop in the pre-dawn darkness on Thanksgiving, I found the chickens' lodgings literally buried in snow. Not only was the coop blanketed by several inches of the white stuff, but weighed-down branches rested atop the outdoor pen, which was itself snow-covered.

I had to clear the snow all around the coop, just to gain access to it. I brushed snow off the roof of the coop, as well as from the tarps atop the pen. Then I cut back the bent barberries and hollies that had sunk onto the run.

All of this took some time, during which I heard nary a peep within the coop. It was as silent as a tomb in there, despite the noise I was making outside. That made me wonder how the girls were faring, especially because two of the hens are molting, and some of their new feathers have yet to grow in.

But all was well, or as well as it can be at this time of year. When I scattered a bit of chicken feed in the pen and placed the food bowl on the ground right outside the coop, a faint clucking finally emerged from within. This was followed by the telltale thump, thump, thump of three hens hopping down from the roost to the wooden floor of the coop, which is covered with a thick layer of pine shavings.

I opened the door. One tiny, red-combed head peered out to assess the dire situation in the great outdoors, followed eventually by the rest of Nellie as she descended the ramp to breakfast. Snow and Hope trailed behind within a matter of seconds.

And so it will be for months to come. Saturday morning, the thermometer read 13 degrees when I released the hens. They were moving a bit slowly and they were not at all thrilled by the early-morning chill, but they made their rounds nonetheless. Our feathered friends — domestic and wild — are much better-suited to the hardships of winter than we are.

Hen Chronicles: Obsessive behavior in the feathered set

The chicken brain may not be very large, but it is complex. Or, at least, baffling.

When we had a spell of unusually cold, blustery weather last week, I was reminded that hens seem to have a switch in their little noggins that we might call the POA, or Poultry Obsession Activator. The problem is that, once a hen flips this switch and becomes fixated, she either can’t or won’t turn it off until a great deal of time has passed. Hence the obsession.

Here’s how it works.

During our recent spate of nasty weather, “the girls” decided that they would not leave the relative comfort of their coop to get some exercise in the outdoor pen, even though their food and water are in the pen and they normally spend most of their daylight hours outside all year long.

On the first unpleasant morning, the three hens emerged for breakfast, then marched right back into the coop and flew up onto the roost, where they nestled together to keep warm and avoid the high winds. After that, they refused to budge, emerging only long enough to wolf down their late-morning and mid-afternoon snacks.

Now, I didn’t blame the hens for wanting to stay out of the elements. If anything, they deserve praise for having enough sense to do so. But even when I moved their feed bowl from the pen to the coop, I could see that their appetites were off, probably because they weren’t getting enough exercise.

On the second day, the winds died down a bit and the weather improved somewhat. But to play it safe, I covered the top of the pen with plywood and the east and west sides with tarps. The north side of the pen is attached to the coop, so only the south side remained open. This made for a cozier atmosphere.

And how did the girls react to this upgrade in their outdoor environs? The POA remained on. The hens hunkered down on the roost in the coop yet again, obsessively convinced that life outside still wasn’t worth living unless there were snacks to be had out there.

It wasn’t until the third day that the hens finally abandoned their preoccupation with round-the-clock coop life. Only then did they remain outside for extended periods of time, as they normally do. But even on the fourth day, they were slow to emerge from the coop first thing in the morning. They eased their way down the ramp tentatively, as if uncertain that “the crisis” had truly passed.

Looking back, I realize this wasn’t the first time I’d seen the POA in use. In the winter of 2013, a blizzard hit central Maine. The day after the storm blew out, it was sunny and relatively warm for winter. There was little or no snow in the pen. But “the girls” refused to leave the coop until the third storm-free day.

Then, as now, though, the hens’ slavish devotion to living the coop life 24/7 was accompanied by another, healthier obsession. Even in the worst weather, they never stopped laying eggs.

Hen Chronicles: Here's a way to mark the arrival of winter

It isn’t winter just yet. Technically. But here in northern New England, we don’t have to rely on calendars to tell us when the season has arrived.

For one thing, we’ve already had two snowstorms in central Maine; I made the switch to snow tires last week. The ice scraper has migrated from the back of the car to the front seat. The trusty thermometer outside the kitchen window leaves no room for doubt. The woodstove has been pressed into service. And the dogs suddenly have become mighty efficient about doing their business when I take them out at 5 a.m.

Then there’s the most reliable indicator of all. It’s to be found in the chicken coop.

I scoop out the coop every morning to remove the previous nights “offerings.” Our three hens seem to do their best pooping overnight, judging by the fact that there’s always more telltale evidence in the coop at dawn than outside in the pen at the end of the day.

Saturday was no exception, but one thing had changed. It was 22 degrees outside at 6 a.m., and for the first time since last winter, the chickens’ droppings in the coop were frozen. Solid. When I tossed these “nuggets” into a bucket, they landed with a rock-like thud. (The hens, on the other hand, were just fine. Feathers are a wonderful invention.)

So now it’s official. You don't have to read chicken entrails to know what the future holds; chicken poop offers a more reliable forecast, at least in the meteorological department. Notwithstanding the calendar’s claims, "the girls" have made it clear that winter is upon us, so we might as well hunker down for the long haul.

Hen Chronicles: Some warnings should not be ignored

Chickens have a lot to say. They have a remarkable variety of vocalizations, some of which are not comprehensible to mere humans without a Chicken-to-English dictionary, which I have yet to find. But I can translate some sounds into an approximation of English. And there's one in particular that I never fail to recognize, even though I rarely hear it. That’s because I know from past experience that it requires immediate action on my part.

As soon as I let “the girls” out of their coop at dawn and give them their breakfast in the pen, I close the coop door to keep them out, so I can clean the coop without having any feathered beasties popping in to get in the way. The roof of our small coop is hinged at the peak, so there’s always at least a slight risk that if a hen wandered in while the roof was propped up, she might fly the coop, literally. That’s to be avoided at all cost on our city lot, which is in a densely populated neighborhood with busy streets. A loose hen is an evasive hen.

The other morning, I went through my usual routine of releasing the hens into the pen, closing the coop door and cleaning the poop from the coop. But before I reopened the door, I decided to remove and store the tarps and plywood that I had placed on top of the pen when it rained the day before. As a result, I didn’t get around to opening up the coop as quickly as I usually do.

That’s when it started.

One of the Rhode Island Reds began making a shrill, plaintive sound that I had heard a few times before. It’s a chicken’s way of saying “I really have to get back into the coop RIGHT NOW because I have some serious business to attend to RIGHT AWAY!”

Sure enough, Nellie, the Red in question, was standing on the ramp that leads up from the pen to the coop. She was staring at the closed door as if trying to will it to open. On the other side of that door, in a corner of the coop, is the nest box where the hens lay their eggs.

I quickly opened the door and watched as Nellie ran inside. Going around to the back of the coop, I opened the lid that covers the nest box. There was Nellie, in the nest box, getting into position to do what hens do. Minutes later, I retrieved a fresh egg.

Letting Nellie back into the coop right away wasn’t so much a courtesy as a smart move on my part. A couple of times over the years, I’ve completely forgotten to reopen the coop after cleaning it, only to realize my mistake hours later. Racing back out to undo the damage, I found fresh eggs on the ground under the elevated coop, or smack dab in the middle of the pen. Both spots are hard to access, and using a long-handled tool to try to roll an uncooked egg to a spot where I can grab it usually results in a broken egg. If you haven't tried it yourself, you can trust me on that one.

So I was more than happy to give in to Nellie’s noisy appeal if it meant I could avoid scrounging around for hidden or unreachable eggs in the pale light of a November morning when the mercury hovered at 32 degrees. It's probably a good idea to save the egg hunts for Easter.

Hen Chronicles: You don't want to mess with a laying hen

Sometimes, I snooker myself into believing that I call the shots out at the coop.

It’s just another delusion.

When I let the hens out the other morning, our Plymouth Rock and one of the two Rhode Island Reds raced into the pen. The other Red stayed behind in the coop’s nest box, where “the girls" lay their eggs.

I clean out the coop first thing in the morning, right after I feed and water the hens, and I didn’t feel like waiting until later to de-poop the coop just because one of the hens refused to budge. So even though the coop wasn’t quite empty, I propped open the hinged roof and began scooping out the overnight deposits, which I dropped into a bucket on the ground right outside the coop.

The nesting hen (I can’t tell the Reds apart unless they’re together, so I don’t know if it was Nellie or Hope), watched me quietly and without moving a muscle as I went about my business. The coop is small — about four feet by four feet — so my right hand was reaching in and out, in and out, in and out, only inches from the Red.

I know better than to touch a chicken who’s laying — hens can be quite assertive and protective when on such a mission — so I didn’t pet the Red. But while I thought I was keeping my distance, she finally decided I was too close for her liking.

Without rising from the nest box, the Red lunged forward with her neck. She did this so suddenly that I didn’t realize what was happening until she had pecked my right hand between two knuckles. Hard. I mean, really hard. Chickens have no teeth, but a beak is a firm and pointy contraption. It's all the more dangerous when it's been placed in motion by an angry hen who knows how to use it. The attack tore through the disposable glove I was wearing and left a nasty bruise.

The Red settled right down after that lone peck, but I got the message. I dropped the roof into place and left her alone. Moments later, she emerged into the pen, having left behind a still-warm egg. And a rather painful reminder as well: Even feathered workers have rights, including a right to privacy.

Hen Chronicles: The Wonder Hen outdoes herself

Our tireless Plymouth Rock, Snow, continues to amaze. Even though she remains in isolation, recovering from a self-inflicted wound that cut part of her comb from her head, she continues laying at her usual rate of several eggs per week. That would be good under normal circumstances because Snow isn’t, as they say, a spring chicken anymore, but she's on the DL to boot. Our two Rhode Island Reds lay more frequently, but they’re younger, they're uninjured and their eggs are smaller.

Yesterday, though, Snow outdid herself. Despite her age (she's at least three years old) and her injury, which initially caused heavy bleeding from a head wound, our own feathered Wonder Woman laid an egg that may have been the biggest of her “career.”

Snow spent most of Thursday morning lying in the cat carrier that serves as a substitute nest box while she recuperates in our backup chicken pen. So I knew she was trying to lay, which often is quite a production for her because her eggs are consistently large. When I went out to check on her after lunch, however, she was running around in the pen, begging for snacks and acting as if she was proud, relieved or some combination of the two.

Sure enough, there was an egg nestled in the pine shavings that provide bedding in “her” cat carrier. But this wasn’t any old egg. It was a monster. Our two Rhode Island Reds, Nellie and Hope, typically lay eggs that are 2 1/4 inches long. Snow’s latest measured about 2 3/4 inches, making it a truly jumbo-sized egg that was unusually heavy as well. It was so big that I almost couldn't close the carton containing it.

No wonder the poor girl was strutting her stuff by the time I got out there yesterday afternoon to see how she was doing. As chickens go, she's a force of nature.

Snow's monster egg, front and center

Hen Chronicles: Believe it or not, hens have personalities

For those among you who may still believe that chickens have no personalities, here's more proof to the contrary.

Dawn is the best time to feed the hens. But as the days have grown shorter, it keeps getting pushed back, from 5:30 to 6, then 6:30, and now 7. Being an early riser, I've sometimes grown impatient. That's why I've occasionally found myself heading out to the coop to release and feed our three hens a few minutes before the sun came up. 

Chickens peg their lives to the rising and setting of the sun. Like clockwork, they go to bed promptly at dusk and get up predictably at dawn. If left to their own devices, our hens would continue to roost in the coop until daylight roused them. So "the girls" weren't quite awake yet when I showed up early.

By rushing their wake-up call a bit, I tampered with the natural order of things. Two of the hens didn't seem to mind my hurry-it-up routine. But the third one was another matter.

Here's how it played out. I placed food and water in the pen and then opened the coop door while it was still somewhat dark outside. Snow, our take-charge Plymouth Rock, was game. When she heard me rustling around outside with the chicken feed, she woke up and hopped down from the roost. Snow emerged as soon as I opened the door, despite the early-morning gloom. Nellie, one of our two Rhode Island Reds, followed a minute or two later.

Eventually, Hope made an appearance as well, but not quickly, and not without trepidation.

Snow and Nellie immediately tucked into their breakfast. But Hope, whose role model is Chicken Little, stood stock still in the pen, making a mournful, high-pitched trilling sound. She continued to do this until dawn finally broke, at which point her obvious fear of the dark evaporated and she joined the other hens in chowing down.

Out of respect for Hope's tender sensibilities, I'm now timing my early-morning arrivals more carefully. After all, no one should hop out of bed fearing what the new day will bring.

Hen Chronicles: The worm-toss queen has been dethroned

There's always a risk of anthropomorphizing the behavior of animals, by interpreting their antics in human terms.

Maybe that's what I did in this case, but I don't think so.

I was mucking around in our compost bins the other day, shoveling out compost for the garlic bed, which we'll be planting at the end of the month. Both bins are located next to our chicken coop. (Yup -- that's where the chicken poop ends up.) In the course of my digging, I found a fat worm. I knew it would make a great snack for one of "the girls."

I tossed the worm toward the pen, where it landed on top of the chicken wire that covers the frame. Snow, our eagle-eyed Plymouth Rock, jumped up, grabbed the dangling end of the worm in her beak, and pulled it down into the pen.

This was par for the course. Snow always is the first to spot an incoming worm, lunging for it with lightning speed. Usually in these situatios, she manages to wolf down her treat before Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, figure out what's going on. When it comes to the worm toss, Snow is the undisputed champ.

Or was.

Nellie brought her A game to the pen that day. She stole the worm from Snow, triggering a scrimmage that involved much flapping of wings. It continued until Nellie -- I wouldn't belive it if I hadn't seen it -- swallowed Snow's worm!

After the prize disappeared down Nellie's gullet, Snow's eyes grew larger than I've ever seen them. She looked around in amazement. Then she began squawking. A lot. And loudly. This wasn't mere clucking, but a throaty cry of outrage and desperation. It was, I'm convinced, her way of asking the obvious question: "What the hell just happened here?"

Nellie, the new champ

Hen Chronicles: At long last, the molt has begun

One of our three hens -- the attention-loving Plymouth Rock, Snow, who often seems to be the focus of these posts -- is molting.

Now, I know a thing or two about molting. It's the periodic discarding of old feathers to make way for new ones. Having kept chickens for more than two years, I've seen plenty of it. I realize it's normal, it's healthy and it happens every year or so, usually when the days grow shorter. A hen will stop laying while moulting, and she may shy away from the other chickens, to avoid being touched or bumped. But there's nothing remotely worrisome about the process.

If it's a "soft molt," the chicken may not even develop bald stops, or at least not very many of them. If it's a "hard molt," you're going to have a seemingly plucked, pathetic-looking chicken on your hands for weeks. Either way, it's what chickens do. The fresh feathers are cleaner and more lustrous than the old ones, and the "new" chicken ends up looking prettier and spiffier than before.

And yet, when I went out to the coop the other day and found dozens of white feathers scattered all over the pen, I held my breath for a fraction of a second. Maybe the subconscious mind asks itself, at the sight of so much chicken "clothing" blanketing the ground, what has gone wrong. Even though the conscious mind knows perfectly well that the answer is this: nothing at all.

Hen Chronicles: Finally, Snow goes home

The Hen Hilton has closed its doors. And the proprietors couldn't be happier.

Some of you may remember that Snow, our Plymouth Rock hen, severed a chunk of her comb back on Sept. 15, when she freaked out during demolition work on a nearby lot and cut herself, probably on chicken wire.

Once Liz and I stopped the bleeding, cleaned her up and applied medication to her messy wound, Snow had to be isolated to prevent our other hens, Nellie and Hope, from pecking at her during her recovery. Chickens, those cannibalistic little devils, are wont to do just that when they spy an injured victim.

As a result, Snow ended up in a backup pen at the other end of the yard -- outside during the day, in the garage for safety at night. That pen became her own private suite, complete with food and water bowls and treats galore. There she remained for almost three weeks, except for our abortive attempt to reunite the hens on Sept. 18, which lasted about 15 minutes because Nellie and Hope were too aggressive. Oh, and there was last week's breakout, when Snow escaped from Liz's clutches and ran toward the main pen, where Nellie and Hope were located. We finally caught her and brought her back to her home away from home.

By last Friday, though, Snow's wound had healed. The scab was gone, and some fresh skin had emerged. She seemed to be tired of life in the isolation ward, even though we had been doting on her. To put it bluntly, she was lonely.

She likes her peeps, but she missed the other chicks.

So, with some trepidation, we decided to try reuniting the flock yet again.

The experts claim the best way to introduce a new chicken -- and we figured Snow had been away long enough to be sort of new at this point -- is to place the newcomer in the coop at night. Chickens sleep very soundly, and the theory is that the regulars won't really notice a nighttime addition until everyone wakes up the next morning. With the latest arrival already in place by then, the flock may live happily ever after, with little or no fuss.

So that's what we did. Once it was dark outside on Friday, and Nellie and Hope had gone to bed, we placed Snow in the coop. I was disappointed to see that she settled into the nest box for the night, instead of joining the other hens up on the roost. But at least there was no fighting. All three hens emerged unscathed Saturday morning and immediately got down to the serious business of attacking their breakfast.

Once that was out of the way, though, Hope and Nellie began poking at Snow. At first, Liz and I were worried, but we quickly saw that the pecks were too gentle to draw blood. In fact, the pecking was more inquisitive than aggressive, and Snow tolerated it well. To my amazement, Snow lightly pecked the other hens too, as if returning the favor. It seemed to be some sort of get-acquainted ritual, like one dog sniffing another pup's you know what.

When snack time rolled around late Saturday morning, all three hens ate out of Liz's hand, and all at the same time. By Saturday night, the three of them were roosting side by side, with Snow smack dab in the middle. It was clear that "the girls" were glad to be together again, and Snow seemed to be the happiest of them all. Nellie and Hope were quiet, but Snow as clucking animatedly, like an excited kid.

I was quite relieved, primarily for her sake but also our own. Caring for one flock in one coop is quite enough work, thank you very much, without running a separate, movable, single-occupancy poultry palace on the side.

Nellie, Hope and Snow, before "the incident." The musketeers are together again.

Hen Chronicles: Our hen Snow, on the disabled list

Snow, before going into battle

Over the last two-plus years, we’ve come up with plenty of adjectives for our Plymouth Rock hen Snow: bossy, talkative, pushy, demanding, animated and voracious, to name a few. Now we have a new way of describing her: wounded in action.

Monday afternoon, I went out to check on our three hens because demolition was underway on a nearby lot. Predictably, the work was creating quite a racket, and knowing how much chickens dislike loud noises, I thought I should see how “the girls” were doing.

In Snow's case, the answer was not well. Not at all well.
 
Snow was lying in the nest box. Her head and beak were covered in blood. There were tiny flecks of blood on her back and drops of blood on one wall of the box. Some of the bedding was bright red. Apparently, the demolition had frightened her enough to send her crashing into something. She was conscious. And agitated.

I ran into the house and grabbed some clean rags. Racing back to the coop, I lifted Snow from the nest box and tried to clean her up, but she wouldn’t let me touch her head.

Chickens are, unfortunately, cannibalistic. As such, healthy chickens are drawn to a wounded chicken, and not out of sympathy. In fact, one of our two Rhode Island Reds was pecking at the blood-soaked bedding when I removed Snow from the coop. For all I know, she may have been pecking at Snow's head before I arrived.

I knew it was important to separate Snow from the other hens, for her own protection. We have a backup pen that we use in such situations, so I placed Snow inside by herself, and watched her as I tried to find the precise location of the head wound. To no avail. There was too much blood.

It seemed clear from Snow’s behavior — she began pecking and scratching as soon as I relocated her — that the wound probably looked worse than it really was. It even appeared by then that the bleeding had stopped, or was about to. Still, she was a gory mess.

When Liz arrived home a short time later, she applied corn starch to Snow’s head, to stanch the bleeding once and for all. Meanwhile, I went to the pet store to buy a medication that can be applied to open wounds. Only when we sprayed it on did we realize that Snow had somehow sliced into the base of her comb. About a third of the comb was no longer attached to her head, although it remained connected to the rest of the comb.

Finding veterinarians who treat chickens isn’t easy, even in a largely rural state like Maine. I called one who’s 45 minutes away. The staffer who answered the phone agreed to check with the vet to see if we should stress out Snow even more by taking her for a long car ride to his clinic. His advice? If the bleeding has stopped, the wound will probably heal on its own, so long as we keep Snow separated from the other hens.

So Snow has been living in that backup pen -- her own intensive-care unit -- since Monday afternoon. Her wound is healing nicely. We’ve tried to “reintegrate” her into the flock, but it’s slow going. Chickens don’t like newcomers, even if the newbie isn’t really new. When we allowed Snow to rejoin Nellie and Hope in the “big” pen Thursday afternoon, more than 72 hours after they were first separated, one of the other hens began pecking at Snow’s head. She went back into isolation. We did not try to reunite the hens on Friday.
 
Under this new, and temporary, regimen, Snow's pen stays outside during the day. We move the pen into the garage at night, to protect her from any critters who may have a hankering for a late-night snack. Snow is eating and talking and walking and even laying, although it’s clear she does not like being alone. Her comb now has a rakish look, because it runs straight back from the front of her head, as it should, before taking a 90-degree turn where she cut herself. It's as if the comb now has a tail that flops around when she moves.

The change is unfortunate, but at least Snow survived, and is on the mend. The accident has given her a bit of a piratical appearance. Which is, as it happens, quite consistent with her personality.

Hen Chronicles: Tempting our chickens' taste buds

You never know unless you try.

We already have a long list of snacks that have passed the chicken taste test — yogurt, spaghetti, bread, oatmeal, strawberries, raspberries, kale, lettuce, sprouts, dandelion greens, etc. — but on Monday, I decided to try expanding the menu.

After doing a bit of research to make sure my experiments would be safe, I pulled a few basil leaves from the garden, tore them into smaller pieces, and gave them to “the girls.” Later that day, at my suggestion, Liz hand-fed banana bits to the hens.

The results were mixed.

The basil was not a big hit. Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, nibbled away at it, but without showing any real enthusiasm. Snow our Plymouth Rock, took one bite, lifted her beak in seeming disgust and stormed over to the water bowl, as if to wash a bad taste from her mouth.

But the banana was another story. All three chickens could not get enough, fast enough. So we’ve added it to our mental list of fave foods.

As it happens, there’s an added advantage to giving chickens a banana snack: it’s very entertaining to watch them tackle the fruit.

A banana, being a banana, is mushy. A chicken, being a chicken, picks up her food with her beak. The end result is that only part of the banana actually works its way into the hen. She ends up wearing the rest of it, in the form of a gooey coating slathered across her beak.

A wit on an online chicken forum has described this comical effect as a case of "banana lips." Which is all the more amusing because chickens, being chickens, have no lips.

Hen Chronicles: Keeping chickens isn't a résumé builder

You learn lots of things by owning chickens. That’s the upside. The downside? Most of it is stuff that is of no use whatsoever in any other context.

Take dealing with chicken wire, for example. Our wood-framed pen is covered in the stuff, and I noticed recently that the wire had become loose on the front of the pen. It wasn't detached  — just slack. The wire had stretched. It wasn’t taut anymore.

What to do? The wire is stapled to the front of the pen in such a way that I’d have to disassemble part of the pen to remove and reattach it. That’s not an attractive prospect. But I found an easier solution. Using needle-nose pliers, I gave a piece of wire a slight turn, which tightened it. By doing this over and over again more than a dozen times across the front of the pen, the whole enclosure ended up nice and snug. No muss, no fuss.

That’s not exactly a skill that would look great on a résumé, but it scored high on the chicken entertainment scale. Snow, Nellie and Hope all lined up, side by side, at the front of the pen and watched in rapt attention as I tackled the job, as if they were supervising my progress.

All three of the normally talkative hens were quiet for a change. Perhaps they were confused -- or intrigued -- by the fact that needle-nose pliers in action vaguely resemble . . . a chicken’s beak!
  

Hen Chronicles: Chicken aerodynamics (or the lack thereof)

Whenever I see one of our hens flapping her wings, as Nellie did yesterday morning after her breakfast, I'm reminded why chickens don't fly very well. The ratio of wing length to body size is way off, as if the creature's designer had sadistic tendencies.

To put it another way: short wings + large hen = poor aerodynamics. Speaking from experience, a hen's wings seem long and powerful if you pick her up incorrectly and she feverishly flaps them in your face. But if you look at a chicken's wings in relationship to the hen as a whole, they are, well, kind of stubby.

Chickens are not flightless birds. They can become airborne. When Liz and I drove down to York County, Maine, in April 2012 to buy our first chickens at a small farm, I saw a free-range hen take off and fly into a tree, where it landed on a branch that was at least 10 to 12 feet off the ground. Some chicken owners even trim their birds' feathers to keep them grounded. (That's something I would never do, even though full-length replacement feathers supposedly grow in when the chicken molts. It strikes me as cruel.)

Still, effortless flight is not really part of a chicken's skill set, to use a tiresome term. As author Gail Damerow notes in The Chicken Encyclopedia: An Illustrated Reference, wings enable a chicken "to fly short distances," but they are more commonly used "for balance during such activities as running or jumping down from a roost."

I've seen our "girls" use their wings in just such a fashion. If one of them stumbles on something, such as a wobbly ramp leading from the coop to the pen, she will extend and possibly flap her wings to right herself, in much the same way that people use their arms to avoid falling on ice. But on those rare occasions when we've had to chase our hens around the yard to get them back into the coop or pen, they've never even tried to fly off, opting instead to run and weave and dart this way and that, without ever leaving the ground. 

Which is just as well. Chickens can run pretty darn fast, and they have great evasive moves. They're hard enough to catch as it is. Fortunately for us, they cannot fly with the grace of an eagle or the agility of a hawk or the efficiency of a carrier pigeon or the speed of a hummingbird. The best they can do is to take wing like a bird that never quite got the hang of the thing.

Hen Chronicles: Sometimes, mischief wears feathers

The excavator

Is it possible that “the girls” pull some of their stunts just to get a rise out of me?

A few days ago, Liz noticed that the hens had dug a sizable hole in their pen. When I went out to check, I found a crater that was about seven inches wide and three inches deep at the southwest corner of the run. The hole was up against, and under, the wooden frame.

Chickens love to dig ditches in sand or loose soil so they can lie down and toss the sand or soil all over themselves, using their feet and wings. This is called a dust bath. The dust, which the chickens later shake off when they get up, discourages parasites from setting up shop in the hens’ feathers.

I certainly don’t want to discourage dust baths, which have the added advantage (for humans) of being very entertaining to watch. But I didn’t like the idea of having a hole at the very edge of the pen either. So I set out to fill it.
 
Pushing down on the soil directly outside the pen, I slide it under the frame and into the hole. As soon as I started doing this, Snow, our Plymouth Rock hen, parked herself in the hole and began scratching — or should I say shoveling? — the newly deposited soil out of the hole. The more dirt I shoved in, the more dirt she shoved out. The faster I worked, the faster Snow worked. Snow seemed to think this was a game, and I suppose it was.

I could see I was getting nowhere, so I propped some bricks outside the pen at that corner, just to make sure nothing could get in or out of the pen if the hens' feats of engineering enlarged the hole enough to undermine the soil outside the pen. That will have to do until I can temporarily relocate the hens, pull the empty pen away from the coop, and level everything out with a rake.

Yesterday, the hens found a new way to aggravate me.

They often overturn their feed bowl or their water bowl. That’s old hat. But this time, they kicked things up a notch.

When I went out to check on them late in the morning, I found that they had somehow managed to knock over the water bowl in such a way that it landed in the feed bowl, which is the same size and shape. The upside-down water bowl covered the right-side-up feed bowl, as if they were two parts of one unit.

The feed bowl was now full of water. It also contained saturated pellets that had the consistency of mush. There was no one else on hand to clean up the mess, so the job fell to me.

The hens watched this process with great interest, as they do with all human activity in their neighborhood unless it involves sudden movements or loud noises. Those scare the dickens out of them, however briefly.

Cats chuck up hairballs and scratch the furniture. Dogs bark at phantoms and destroy curios when they tear through the house. But chicken antics seem to be especially imaginative. That leaves me wondering if they’re just clumsy critters acting on instinct, or downright mischievous creatures who love a good prank. I'm leaning towards the latter.

Hen Chronicles: The reluctant layer goes on strike . . . again

Keeping chickens is fun . . . except when it isn’t.

Our three hens — Snow, Hope and Nellie — have been laying well of late, often producing three eggs per day, which is the poultry equivalent of a factory running at full capacity. At one point recently, each of them laid an egg a day for four days straight.

In the world of backyard chickens, it doesn’t get any better than that.

But it can, and did, get worse.

We retrieved three eggs last Saturday and three more on Sunday, but only two eggs per day on Monday and Tuesday. The hens do take well-earned breaks, but usually for no more than a day at a time. It was clear Monday and Tuesday that one chicken in particular had stopped laying. The eggs that we found in the nest box on those two days were too small to have been laid by Snow, our Plymouth Rock and the oldest of our hens.

Snow had shut down production.

We didn’t give it a second thought when Snow scratched and pecked and ate and clucked her way through the day sans egg on Monday. I’ve read that a hen will lay a clutch of eggs — that is, an egg a day for several consecutive days — then skip a day or more before starting another clutch. But Tuesday’s follow-up no-show in the egg department left us somewhat concerned, because of Snow’s history. 

Snow became egg-bound at one point last summer. This is a potentially life-threatening condition in which a hen has formed an egg but is unable to release it, making her listless. We solved the problem that time by applying a lubricant in her nether regions and following up with a warm, soapy bath in Dawn dishwashing liquid. (Surprisingly, hens tolerate baths quite well.) After a warm-water rinse, we encouraged her to walk around the yard. Sure enough, the lethargic Snow soon laid an egg, and instantly perked right up.

Needless to say, I’d prefer not to go through that process again, largely because there’s no guarantee it will work.

So Wednesday was a big day. No egg three days running might mean Snow was egg-bound once again, or showing early signs of disease.

Snow acted normally when I released the hens from the coop at dawn on Wednesday, which was a good sign. Later that morning she went into the nest box, where she stayed put for a long time. The hens often lay their eggs in the morning and always in the nest box, so we knew that Snow’s seclusion meant she was trying to get down to business.

I checked in on her once, then left her alone. After what seemed like an eternity, she finally popped back down into the pen. But that did not answer the big question: had she accomplished anything during her retreat? I’ve seen hens hang out in the nest box for quite some time, only to get up and walk away without leaving anything behind.

So I held my breath as I walked out to the coop and lifted the lid that covers the nest box. There, nestled in the pine shavings, was an egg. A warm egg. A very large egg.

Snow’s egg. 

Equilibrium had returned to our little flock. At least for the time being.
  

The reluctant layer