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.

Hen Chronicles: Baby it's cold outside (chicken edition)

My wife Liz and I are coming up on seven years of chicken keeping, all of them here in central Maine, yet I still fret over how “the girls” will fare when the temperature drops to zero, or lower.

I know, from experience and from my reading, that chickens, like other species of birds, are adapted to coping with winter weather. If they are well-feathered and well-fed, and if they have a dry coop that shelters them from the wind and the snow, they should do just fine. In fact, experts say it’s more difficult to protect chickens from the worst summer heat than from winter’s chill.

Still, we think of our chickens as pets. No responsible pet owner would leave a cat or a dog outside in single-digit temps. Of course, birds are different, and technically, the hens aren't outside. Yet I find myself making periodic adjustments to the coop as I try to give Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, a bit of an edge.

We don’t have a large walk-in coop attached to the house or garage, but rather a small, freestanding coop that’s only big enough for four chickens. (We have two right now.) The coop is not heated, because of the fire risk and the theory that heating a coop makes it difficult for chickens to adjust to outdoor temperatures during the day.

The interior of the coop isn’t insulated, but I compensate for that by stacking large bags of leaves against the exterior. I add extra bedding to the coop when it’s especially cold, to better insulate the floor, which is elevated about a foot off the ground. And I cover the metal roof with saddle blankets.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that chickens need ventilation, even at night. Otherwise, they run the risk of developing frostbite and respiratory problems if moisture builds up inside from their breathing and bodily functions. So I almost always leave a sliding window at least partially open overnight, ignoring my natural instinct to make the coop airtight on the coldest nights.

The last thing I saw when I locked the girls in last night, as the temperature outside continued its slide to an eventual low of four degrees, was the two hens snuggled up, wing to wing on the roost, sharing their body heat as they settled in. They always look comfortable and content in that setting (open window notwithstanding). Which reassures me — somewhat — that I’ve done right by them.

Hen Chronicles: Treating chickens like pets, even in winter

I suspect that people who keep chickens as, you know, livestock, may not go through quite as many cold-weather gyrations as those of us who treat them as pets.

It was 7 degrees outside with a wind chill of 13 below when I headed out to release our two hens from their coop and feed them at 7 o’clock this morning. I knew from the outset that I’d be out there for a while.

Even though I strongly suspected that Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, would refuse to emerge from the coop, I placed the food and water bowls in the pen. For one thing, there was a dusting of snow in the pen, thanks to a squall that materialized late yesterday afternoon, before I could cover the pen with a tarp. Throw in the stiff breeze that blew first thing this morning and it made for a perfect storm of chicken recalcitrance, because Nellie and Hope hate both the snow and the wind.

Noetheless, I unlatched the coop door, on the off chance that “the girls” might surprise me and venture forth. Hope remained on the roost, but Nellie peeked out. She caught the wind on her face, saw the snow in the pen, and quickly retreated inside.

So I got to work, adjusting the tarp that I had placed on the pen last night and adding additional tarps to the sides of the pen, as buffers against the wind. The hens weren't buying it, though, and remained in the coop. I retrieved their food and water bowls from the pen and placed them in the coop, despite the risk that one of them could knock over the water bowl and make a mess.

There's work yet to be done after I warm up a bit. I'll sweep aside some of the snow in the pen, to try to entice the hens outside. If Nellie and Hope are kind enough to vacate the premises for a while, I'll then remove their overnight "deposits" from the coop.

The chicken mind is not the easiest thing to comprehend, so I have no idea if “the girls” appreciate my efforts. Whether they do or not, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing I try to do my best by them. After all, they are pets, not livestock.

Hen Chronicles: And so, the annual feather toss begins

I found five rust-red feathers in the coop this morning, after our two Rhode Island Red hens, Nellie and Hope, sauntered out into the pen for breakfast.

Chickens lose the occasional feather throughout the year, so today's discovery is no big deal, in and of itself. But with autumn right around the corner, this was no isolated incident. One of the hens has begun her annual molt, which involves discarding old feathers to make room for a new set of duds.

Eyeballing the hens this morning, both of them still appeared to be fully feathered, but that means nothing. The loss of a few feathers would not be immediately apparent on a chicken. More telling was the fact that Nellie now has one feather on her back that’s askew. It points upward instead of resting flat, which probably means it will fall out soon.

So Nellie is molting. With any luck, Hope won’t be far behind, although the timing of such things can be unpredictable. The main question now is whether Nellie will have a soft molt, which would drag on slowly over a period of months, or a hard molt, in which all of the feathers would fall out almost simultaneously and be replaced in short order.

Nellie recently stopped laying, which may have happened because the days are growing shorter or because she felt a molt coming on. None of the hens we’ve owned over the last six years has laid any eggs while molting. Overall, though, the hens seem to take molting in stride, with little change in their behavior.

Just don’t touch them while the process is underway. As old feathers drop like leaves in an October breeze and countless new “pin feathers” poke through the skin, physical contact with anyone is the farthest thing from a chicken’s mind. Hands off is the guiding principle, for reasons that, at least to the molting chicken, seem perfectly obvious.

Hen Chronicles: Surviving a brutal heat wave

The experts say it’s more important to keep chickens cool during the summer than warm during the winter, because they can cope with the cold far better than with the heat.

I’ve found this to be true over the years. Feathers are a great asset in the winter, but quite the opposite during a heat wave. "The girls" obviously are more content when the thermometer drops to 5 degrees than when it spikes to 95. 

So this has not been a great week for our two Rhode Island Reds, Nellie and Hope. For days on end, the temperature hovered in the 70-degree range at dawn, and topped 90 within hours, even reaching 97 degrees on one especially brutal day.

The hens survived the ordeal, but not comfortably. They panted, as chickens do when they’re warm. They ate less than usual. They did not move around a lot, spending much of their time in the shade under the elevated coop.

I did what I could to help them, by covering portions of the pen with plywood to block the sun, and by adding ice cubes to their drinking water. I even placed frozen bottles of water in our small coop before the hens went to bed, to help cool it down a bit.

By last night, everything had changed. It was breezy and cool at dusk, which is chicken bed time, and for the first time in close to a week "the girls" appeared to be happy on their roost. Today dawned at 54 degrees, with a projected high in the 70s, and the hens raced out into their pen this morning. Chickens can’t smile, of course, but if they could, they would.

Hen Chronicles: Wasn't that a mighty storm?

If there’s one thing chickens do not like, in addition to loud, sudden noises, it’s strong winds.

The wind was kicking up such a racket during the night that it woke me up at 3:30 this morning. By the time I went out to release “the girls” from their coop at 5:45 it was still blowing up a storm, so I figured Nellie and Hope would be none too happy.

After I placed their feed and water bowls in the pen, I unlatched the coop door, anticipating protests. Nellie, one of our two Rhode Island Reds, surprised me by cooperating. She headed down the ramp and made a beeline for the food bowl.

But Hope was another matter.

Approaching the open door ever so slowly, she tentatively stuck her head out. Tilting it to one side, she eyed the sky with a wary look before retreating back into the coop. She emerged moments later, only to make a quick about-face and head back inside while I was still removing last night's “deposits” from the pine shavings that blanket the coop floor.

Finally, she went back out yet again, and parked herself next to Nellie in front of the food bowl. Hunger had trumped anxiety. At least for a few minutes.

Hen Chronicles: The early bird gets . . . impatient!

It’s a good thing I’m an early riser. It may still be a bit nippy first thing in the morning, but spring has arrived, and our hens know it.

Gone are the days when the sun — and the chickens —  rose at 7, or 6:45, or 6:30. Even before I reached the coop at 6:15 this morning, I could hear Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, bouncing around inside, desperate to get out into the pen, and breakfast.

By the time “the girls” spotted my approach, they were pecking at the east-side window of the henhouse in a frantic bid for freedom.

And it isn’t just the earlier start to the day that marks the change of seasons. Egg production is up, thanks to more hours of daylight. By the 19th of this month, we already had collected more eggs in April than during the entire month of March.

The hens are getting up earlier, working harder and staying up later than they have in months. They are livelier and more active than they have been for some time; comfortable, content. And, much to their delight, they’re getting more snacks too.

There were no afternoon treats to be had during the winter, because the chickens went to bed so early. Now, it’s mealworms late in the morning and lettuce (or other greens) in the afternoon. Sometimes the lettuce even comes with a side order of plain yogurt, a favorite that drives the hens into a feeding frenzy.
 
At this time of year, life is good on Planet Chicken, even if dawn breaks a bit earlier every day.

Hen Chronicles: Spring has sprung on Planet Chicken

Chickens, like humans, are creature of habit. But unlike humans, they are especially inflexible about their bedtime. When dusk begins to settle over our yard, Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, abandon their pen and troop up the ramp and into the coop for the night.

Except, occasionally, when spring fever sets in. For chickens, like humans, respond with bursts of enthusiasm to this time of rebirth and renewal.

During the winter months, Nellie and Hope routinely went to bed a bit early, as if giving up on the day. Now, though, they seem determined to savor every last minute of daylight. So they postpone their nocturnal routine until it finally gets dark enough for instinct to demand that they head inside.

As it began to grow dark one night last week, I could see, looking out from the house, that the pen was empty, supposedly meaning that “the girls” had retired for the night. Heading out to the coop, I prepared to close and latch the door, as I always do at dusk.

But a sudden movement stopped me in my tracks.

Looking every bit like a cartoon character that had sprung to life, Nellie suddenly appeared in the doorway, raced down the ramp at warp speed, and began feverishly pecking away at stray feed pellets on the ground. It reminded me of a child (or maybe an adult, but I won’t name any names) sneaking one last cookie before heading off to bed.

Moments later, Nellie realized it really was too late to be outside, and returned to the coop. My wife, Liz, then had to lift Nellie up to the roost, because it was too dark for her to get up there by herself. Nellie settled in happily next to Hope, and called it a night.

We associate springtime with songbirds, but they aren’t the only winged creatures who appreciate this particular change of seasons.

Hen Chronicles: Is it a "witch egg," or just a seasonal glitch?

Last year, our little flock’s winter break came to an end on March 11. That's when one of our hens laid the first egg of 2017.

This year, the return to work began a day earlier. Nellie, one of our two Rhode Island Reds, took to the nest box yesterday morning and left behind the offering that’s pictured below.

Size wise, it isn’t very impressive, coming in at no more than two inches in length, and perhaps a bit shorter than that. In fact, it may be the smallest egg we’ve seen in almost six years of keeping chickens. But it’s a clean, unblemished, hard-shelled egg.

More importantly, it’s a harbinger of better days to come as spring draws near.

We’ve encountered this sort of thing before when the hens resume laying after a hiatus of several months. It may take a little while for their "equipment" to ramp back up. But we haven’t cracked the egg yet, so only time will tell if it’s just a tiny egg or something else -- what’s sometimes called a fairy egg, which is a small egg with no yolk. Fairy eggs are typically laid by pullets (young hens) that are new to the game, or by older hens that are slowing down. Nellie and Hope turned five in January, so they are neither young nor ancient.

“Fairy eggs occur when the hen's body begins to form an egg before a yolk is released from her oviduct,” according to fresheggsdaily.com. “Therefore, only the white (albumen) is encased inside the shell.” That’s the scientific explanation, but folks had different ideas in the Middle Ages. Back then, yolk-less eggs were known as witch eggs (because they were thought to be satanic) or cock eggs (because they were thought to have been laid by roosters).

As a species, we may not be as advanced as we'd like to believe, but in some ways, at least, we are more enlightened than our ancestors.

A witch egg? Or just plain tiny?

Hen Chronicles: Well-equipped to cope with winter's worst

Even after six years of keeping chickens, there's one thing that never ceases to amaze me.

It was barely a hair above zero outside when I got up at 4:45 this morning. Decked out in their fleece-lined coats, the dogs were very efficient about "doing their biz," thanks to the cold weather. When 7 o'clock rolled around it was time for me to head out again, this time to release the hens from their coop and feed them.

I couldn't possibly have donned more vests, coats, scarves, etc., without completely immobilizing myself. Yet when I finally lugged the feed and water bowls out to “the girls,” Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, showed no signs of discomfort. Nellie peered through the small window above the coop door, waiting for me to let her out into the pen. Hope emerged moments later, and both hens dug into their breakfast with apparent indifference to this latest wintry indignity.

Chickens certainly are not immune from the cold. Nellie and Hope sometimes retreat into the coop during the day, to escape an icy wind, or to enjoy the sunlight pouring in through the east-side window. And they huddle together on the roost at night, wing to wing, sharing their body heat to keep one another warm.

Still, their ability to withstand whatever winter throws their way is remarkable. It was only a few weeks ago that they coped amazingly well with overnight temps of 15 below. They did so even with a partially open coop window that provided the ventilation they need while cooped up, to avoid the frostbite and respiratory problems that can be caused by excessive moisture in the coop.

My feeding and coop-cleaning duties completed, I hightailed it back to the house. Because whatever advantages we humans may have over chickens, a thick, head-to-tail covering of feathers is not one of them.

Hen Chronicles: Normal temps return; happy hens take note

After our recent deep freeze, when overnight temps dropped below zero for days on end, I was reminded this morning that caring for chickens can, in fact, be a pleasant experience, even in January.

It was 29 degrees in the backyard when I headed out to the coop at dawn. I could hear Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, bouncing around inside, eager to get out into the pen, and breakfast. They raced down the ramp as soon as I opened the door, obviously well aware that it was downright balmy outside, at least by Maine standards.

Gone are the frigid days when the hens stared at me balefully from their roost first thing in the morning, refusing to get up, and the mercury only inched its way to zero by noon. Back then, I hardly got to see "the girls" even when they finally did emerge from the coop, thanks to the tarps that blanketed the pen to provide some protection from the wind and the cold.

The pen is now open to the light and the air, so the hens were on full display this morning as they excitedly pecked away at their feed with renewed enthusiasm. Nellie and Hope were quite happy as the sky began to lighten. And that brought a smile to my face. We’ll enjoy it while we can.

Hen Chronicles: In "Henlandia," a bedtime mystery is solved

Christmas was uneventful in what my wife Liz likes to call Henlandia, the coop and pen where our two Rhode Island Reds, Nellie and Hope, live. The deep freeze that we are experiencing now in Maine had not yet set in, and although we had a snowstorm on Dec. 25, “the girls” went about their business as usual that day.

Two days later, though, things changed, at least for Nellie. When I trudged out to the coop at dusk on Dec. 27 to lock the hens in for the night, Hope was alone on the roost, which is where the hens sleep. An agitated Nellie was wandering around on the floor beneath Hope, gazing up at the roost but seemingly unable to hop onto it. A short time later, I found her sitting in one of the nest boxes, so Liz removed her and lifted her onto the roost, where she settled in for the night beside Hope. It was obvious that’s where she desperately wanted to be.

The same thing happened again on Thursday, Dec. 28, and the following night as well. I worried that this odd behavior marked the onset of some disease, or that Nellie had injured a foot or a leg, preventing her from making the nightly jump to the roost.

I have to digress here to note that, because the weather has been so abominably cold of late — 18 below at dawn today — I’ve fully encased the hens’ outdoor pen in tarps, except where it abuts the coop. The top, sides and front of the wood and wire pen are covered by tarps day and night, to shield the hens from the wind while they are outside during the day and, to some extent, warm things up a bit as well.

In the past, I’ve only used tarps when it snows, rains or is extremely windy, but this marks the first time we’ve had such brutal weather since we began keeping chickens in 2012. New conditions call for new responses. Blanketing the pen like this makes it quite dark, but even in this weather, the hens do not want to be cooped up during the day. This gives Nellie and Hope the chance to escape the confines of the coop and stretch their legs.

No, that wasn’t a tangent. Here’s how all this ties together. By Saturday, Dec. 30, it warmed up just enough during the day to remove one tarp from the front of the pen, allowing the sun to shine in for a few hours. That night, I had yet to replace that tarp when I put the hens to bed. So the pen, and the entrance to the coop, were still open to the waning light. Lo and behold, Nellie had joined Hope on the roost, and without an assist from Liz. I removed that tarp again yesterday, and Nellie joined Hope on the roost again last night.

We finally knew what had happened, although Liz had suspected the truth for a day or two. Chickens have excellent eyesight. Better than humans, in fact. But only in the light. Like us, they are essentially blind in the dark. With the pen darkened by tarps, the coop, too, got darker than usual faster than usual, and that prevented Nellie from getting up onto the roost. Maybe Hope’s eyesight is a bit stronger than Nellie’s, or perhaps Nellie waited just a bit too long to deal with the failing light of the coop. Either way, removing one tarp from the pen before bedtime let just enough light into the coop just long enough to solve the problem.

Sometimes, baffling mysteries have simple explanations, as Sherlock Holmes would be the first to admit.

Hen Chronicles: How snow-phobic hens cope with white stuff

Maybe we didn’t raise them properly.

Nellie and Hope, our Rhode Island Reds, are almost five years old. They’re full-grown. They’ve survived several winters, including sub-zero temperatures. Hope even has a spur on the back of her left leg, something that is much more common in roosters than hens.

So these two shouldn’t be terrified of the snow. But they are.

I’ve seen photos online of free-range chickens braving snow-covered yards. often in single file as they venture forth. But our hens are not free-range. We live in an urban area, and only part of our yard is fenced, so roaming chickens would soon become dead chickens.

In addition to their coop, which is elevated (providing open space for them underneath), Nellie and Hope also have an attached, wire-covered pen. That's where I place their food and water bowls, and where they spend most of their daylight hours unless the weather fails to cooperate. It's not a walk-in pen, so there's no easy way to remove snow from it. As a result, I always keep an eagle eye on the forecast, so I can cover the pen with a tarp (or tarps, if need be) when snow is in the offing.

Last night’s forecast said nothing about snow, so I left the pen uncovered overnight. When I went out to release and feed the hens at dawn, I found a dusting of snow in the pen. Yes, it was only a dusting, but I knew from past experience how “the girls” would react. Short version: not well.

Even though I brushed off the ramp leading from the coop to the pen, Nellie and Hope refused to come out. I postponed my morning ritual of cleaning the coop, went back to the house, and had breakfast. Thirty minutes later, the hens remained in the coop, which I was now determined to clean, hens or no hens.

Our coop has a hinged roof, which I prop open with a long stick for the daily poop scooping. So there was a theoretical risk that “the girls” might fly out if I cleaned the coop while they were still inside. (Yes, chickens can fly. No, not very well.) I figured the sight of snow would keep the hens grounded.

Sure enough, when I lifted the roof and leaned into the coop to scoop poop, Nellie and Hope watched me as I talked to them. But they showed no interest in either flying out into the yard or walking out into their pen. My chores complete, I lowered the roof and resisted the temptation to move the food and water bowls from the pen to the coop.

But here’s something else I’ve learned from experience. If Nellie and Hope are still holed up by mid-morning, I’ll cave in. Guaranteed. 

Hen Chronicles: It’s not pretty, but it could be a lot worse

Our three hens were not amused when I went out to feed them shortly after 7 a.m. They were not alone.

Last night’s storm brought heavy rain and strong winds that gusted to 50 miles per hour or more here in central Maine. Schools are closed in many communities. The storm snapped a neighbor's tall but skinny tree and sent it crashing into our yard. Part of our driveway is now blocked too, by a second casualty: long, thick branches from a maple tree. The storm isn’t over as I write this at 8 a.m. In fact, the winds may get stronger today. But while many Mainers have lost power, we have not (so far), for which we are grateful.

As for the chickens, they were agitated but dry when I opened the coop door this morning. The pen that abuts our small coop is covered with tarps — top, sides and front — for the duration of the storm, so it too remains dry, although I had to adjust two of the tarps where they had come loose overnight.

Not surprisingly, Snow, Nellie and Hope showed no interest in venturing out into the pen, at least initially. After a night of howling winds, coupled with the sound of rain pelting the metal roof above their heads, they had a case of the jitters. Perhaps, too, “the girls” had a bit of trouble deciding if morning had broken, what with the gray dawn and the gloomy pen, which remains dark and uninviting because of its covering of tarps.

Still, their food and water bowls are out in the pen, dry and waiting. So the hens will venture forth eventually, if they haven’t already, once hunger, thirst and curiosity get the better of them.

Hen Chronicles: The nasty weather makes way for spring

After two days of raw, windy, rainy weather that bore no resemblance to spring as it should be, today dawned calm and sunny here in central Maine, with the promise of similar gifts in the days ahead.

Our hens took notice.

Snow, Nellie and Hope raced out of the coop at dawn with an extra spring in their step, and quickly dug into their breakfast while I cleaned the coop. Later, as I went about the business of folding and removing the large tarp that has covered their pen since Saturday night, "the girls" all gathered at the front of the pen and watched attentively as daylight flooded in.

Nellie then returned to the coop and planted herself in the nest box, presumably to go about the business of laying an egg. Hope staged a triumphal walk around the pen. And Snow, the oldest of the hens, sat herself down and quietly gazed off to the east, as the sun embraced her world.

The experts say that chickens, like other birds, have better eyesight than we do, that they can even see colors which are beyond our imagining. That must have made for an especially glorious sunrise.

Hen Chronicles: It's not a cock-a-doodle-do, but it's close

Chickens don't really have a lot of bad habits. They fly into a panic at the slightest provocation, but only momentarily. And they can be indiscriminate about where they poop, but the same can be said about dogs, once they are outside. Litter boxes are not an option.

All in all, though, our three hens are well-behaved. My only complaint? Sometimes, I wish they didn't have such a slavish devotion to the rising sun. Dawn breaks, and "the girls" wake up. Instantly. Fully. Completely. They want out. Now. And they want their breakfast. Immediately.

I headed out the back door at 5:40 this morning, yet even that was too late for Snow, Nellie and Hope. As soon as I stepped off the deck en route tot the garage, where their feed is stored, I could hear the hens squawking, even though their coop is at the far back end of our good-sized lot. When I reached the coop moments later, with food and water bowls in hand, all three hens were stationed at the east-side window, bellyaching to beat the band and pecking feverishly at the window in a noisy, desperate bid to get out.

Unlike roosters, hens don't crow, of course. But at 5:40 in the morning, a squawking hen is loud. She is shrill. And she definitely is disturbing the peace. Multiply that by three.

It's a good thing we have tolerant neighbors. And that the cacophany come to an abrupt end as soon as I open the coop door.

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.

Hen Chronicles: They're starting to return to work

Back in the old days (say, 2013), our hens continued to lay eggs straight through the winter. They produced fewer of them then than during the warmer months, but they still did what hens do best, albeit at a slower pace.

Then, in the winter of 2014-15, they stopped. Completely. This wasn’t especially surprising, because hens need quite a bit of light (daylight and/or artificial light) to produce eggs, and we don’t light our coop. The surprising thing was not that they called it quits that winter, but that they had previously laid eggs even as the snow flew and the temperature plummeted.

I attribute that first work stoppage, and those that followed last winter and this winter as well, to the fact that chickens lay less — or not at all — as they get older. Without artificial light to give them a boost by creating the illusion of longer days, their bodies have been taking a predictable, and well-deserved, cold-weather break.

Lately, though, Liz and I have been wondering when “the girls” would get back to work. In 2015, the first egg of the year made its appearance on Feb. 20. Last year, it materialized on March 8. And this year?
 
Today was the big day.

The first sign came at dawn, when I released Snow, Nellie and Hope into the pen for breakfast. Snow and Hope continued to eat even after I finished cleaning the coop, but as soon as I scooped the last bit of poop, Nellie, a Rhode Island Red, sauntered back into the coop and plopped herself down in the hens’ favorite nest box, where they usually lay their eggs.

When I headed back to the coop at 8:30 to switch out their frozen water bowl with a fresh one, Nellie remained in the nest box. And that still was the case when Liz brought the hens a snack at 10:30, although Nellie quickly came out into the pen to get her share of mealworm.

We were starting to worry a bit by then, hoping that Nellie wasn't egg bound, which happens if a hen has a fully formed egg stuck inside. But when I carried out another bowl of water at 12:30, Nellie had vacated the premises, leaving behind a small but perfectly formed egg to kick off the 2017 season.

The outdoor thermometer read zero at noon and heavy winds made it feel much colder, but even though the weather outside was frightful, Nellie’s biological clock told her that her vacation had finally come to an end.

Nellie's first-of-the-year offering

Hen Chronicles: Expanding all of our horizons after it snows

One of the things my wife Liz and I enjoy about keeping chickens is that our coop and pen are visible from the house. They’re located 100 feet or more behind our home, but there’s a straight line of sight from a back window to the poultry palace.

Except, that is, when it snows heavily, and repeatedly, over a short period of time.

So much snow fell here in central Maine in the span of a week or so this month that the area between the house and the coop was buried in it. Once the snow stopped falling a few days back, the only portion of the coop that we could see from the house was the top of its peaked roof. Everything else, including the pen that abuts the front of the coop, was completely invisible.

The hens were in no danger. I always keep the area around the coop and the pen free of snow, so we can feed and care for our three chickens, and that was the case this time as well. But from the house, the mountain of snow between the back door and the coop made it look as if “the girls” had been buried by an avalanche. A recent spate of warm weather shrunk the snowpack somewhat, but not enough to make a meaningful difference.

Yesterday, I finally decided enough was enough. Grabbing a shovel, I headed out back and cleared much of the snow between house and pen. It was exhausting, but the end result made it all worthwhile. We once again have a clear view of Snow, Nellie and Hope when they’re outside in the pen, which allows us to enjoy their antics from the comfort of the house.

I noticed this morning that all three hens were standing at the front of the pen, looking out toward the back of the house, which they could now see for the first time in more than a week. So the vista I created yesterday proved to be a two-way street. Not only can we keep an eye on the hens, but they once again have a better view of their surroundings as well, instead of being closed in by a wall of white.

Hen Chronicles: The sun will come out (or not) tomorrow

You have to admire her optimism, but when Annie insists that “the sun will come out tomorrow,” there’s no way around the fact that she doesn’t necessarily know what the hell she’s talking about.

The sun finally did break free here in central Maine yesterday, and it’s out again today, but only after it went into hiding for a week or more, during which we were buffeted by multiple snowstorms, high winds and other meteorological indignities. One storm alone dumped 21 inches of snow in our backyard last weekend.

We have a small coop, and because of its size, I’m reluctant to lock our three hens inside during the day, no matter how bad the weather gets. So while Old Man Winter expressed his wrath, I completely covered the outdoor pen with several tarps. This at least gave our chickens the option of venturing outside to stretch their legs without getting wet or wind-blown, although they rarely took advantage. Thus sheltered, the pen was dry and draft-free, but mighty dark and not very inviting.

The weather finally began to improve yesterday, so that, by noontime, I had removed the vertical tarps from the sides of the pen, leaving only an overhead tarp in case it began to snow yet again. By 1:30 in the afternoon, though, the sun was out in full force, so I removed the top tarp as well, leaving the pen fully exposed to the bright sunlight and (reasonably) pleasant temperatures.

“The girls” slowly emerged from the coop into the pen, looking for all the world like prison inmates who had been set free after serving their time. They seemed a bit dazed and tentative, thanks to that bright orb in the sky, but they recovered quickly enough. When I checked in on them at dusk to make sure they were on their roost in the coop for the night, they chattered softly, in what I took to be a sign of contentment. It was a welcome sound that had been sorely missed for quite some time.