Still Life with Chickens

Cold Chicken

2023-02-03T14:25:00.001-08:00

It had been a mild winter…

Up until now-ish.

A couple of weeks ago there was a big storm, lots of people had been wanting snow, and they got it.

Sort of.

My experience of it was many, too many, hours of shoveling interspersed with falling, hauling, yelling, you get the picture.

The last straw was lying on the ground with a sled load of wood as my neighbor drove carefully around me and kept on going. This in a place where, if I had not been able to get up would have been less heart breaking and more life threatening.

Meanwhile, in the chicken house, the girls were unanimous in their request that I make it stop.

Even on the nice warm days of upper 20’s to low 30’s they tentatively stuck a beak out the door, gave me a look and went back in. Dried worms worked, but not for long.

Nobody wants any salad greens either.

“What is this trash you are feeding us? Why do you keep giving us cabbage, we hate cabbage.”

I apologize to them every day, and every day they forgive me and go on, but I don’t think they really believe that none of this is anything I can do anything about.

We are expecting wind chills tonight of possibly -40 and FB has people talking about it as though it were Ragnarok. There are some gods with whom I would cheerfully dispense, but maybe not whomever is in charge of chickens.

One woman is bringing them in to her house.

That will not happen here unless the power goes out.

Another says chickens are tough, and since that is Rebecca Rule and her chicken wrangler daughter Adi, I will go with that as my outer limit.

They have a flat ceramic heater, and heated water, more shavings than reasonable, and treats, so as long as the wind we are promised doesn’t kill the lights, I imagine we will all survive.

“Everything is always working out for me” my sister says, and it seems to work for her.

I will tell the girls before lights out.

Whippersnappers.

2022-11-20T12:23:00.001-08:00

The old girls have been settling in happily chatting, eating bugs and compost, hanging out in the last of the sun, and generally enjoying themselves.

That changed today.

I brought home 5 of 15 hens someone gave me, and the new girls clustered together with their backs to the center, eyeing the Aunties with suspicion. Pearl had to let one of the upstarts know who the alpha girl is on the property, but otherwise, they have left each other alone.

The originals complained though. Muttering peppered with vocalizations of outrage and protest.

Cleaning up the coop day, just in time for it to get messier faster with more chickens, I found 6 eggs, and having the impression that the girls had closed down shop, I was surprised, but happy to be able to hand eggs over to people again.

They will probably knock it off now that there are strangers about, and a clique of girls who all went to summer camp together and have their own stories, don't want to hear anything from the elders, no directions, no tips or criticisms.

Tomorrow when there are even more chickens added to the flock, I expect more questions about when it will stop.

2022-11-16T07:27:00.005-08:00

We are coming up on, is it 3? years since the virus hit and changed the world; unlike so many who got more creative during that time, I stopped writing.

About a year into the pandemic, I stopped having chickens too, because losing them to one disaster after the other was more than I could handle.

A friend in the next town had a bigger flock, a more secure location, so they went to live there. I sent 4 over, and 2 weeks ago, 3 came back, the intrepid Pearl, the affectionate Marsha, and the introverted Golda. They are all non producers now, so I have set them up in an avian retirement home, but unlike human ones, they are about to be joined by a bunch of teenagers, and possibly a rooster.

I am on the fence about the rooster.

Who could compare with Buck, the strangest security guard ever?

A local woman has 15 that she is giving away, because she is moving to Florida for the winter. It seems as though that happens, and then when the snow birds come back in the summer, they get more chickens.

The girls settled in well, I am hoping they remember me a little from bringing them a big box of green and sometimes fruit throughout the 2 years they lived in Nelson, If they don't remember me, they are at least being polite and appreciative.

That will change when they get a bunch of whippersnapper hens in their space.

I have missed their gentle conversations, remarks about what they find, secrets they pass around before bed, and their greetings in the morning. All of these vocalization are different. They can tell when I am greeting them, and when I tell them my side of things, they don't take it to heart.

If they share opinions and advice in Avian American, it goes over my head, but sometimes....

Sometimes I get the gist.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

2017-08-25T13:29:00.001-07:00

Since I have gotten chickens again, I feel invited to be out in the yard, As I tear out a couple of years worth of black raspberries, horsetail, grapes, invasive roses, autumn olive and pretty much every other weed that is happy to choke out the things I selected to plant over the years, I think of the saying many hands make light work. In this case, it is many beaks. The chickens follow me around cheerfully, carefully examining everything I pull up and call to each other as they find things of interest; grapes, chickweed, fallen apples, peaches that are worthless to anyone but chickens and of course, bugs.
Chickens are carnivores, so getting "grain fed" chicken or chickens who are layers but don't ever get to forage means less healthy chickens. The eggs my girls donate are the best I have ever known. The shells are hard. The inner membrane doesn't break easily. The yolks are a rich yellow/orange, the whites hold together- the consistency of jellyfish.
It comforts me to have them follow me around, asking questions, offering opinions, gossiping about the cat, and probably me, but never by name, because they don't want to hurt my feelings.
It is good to come home and have someone happy to see me, as the chickens always are. If I'm not careful they will go for walks with me, which, considering the predator level around here might not be such a great idea.
When I go across the road to do anything, they look up from flipping leaves and offering opinions on the quality of caterpillar, and run over to where I am, surround me and look up expectantly. "got any grapes?''
Sometimes, they consent to being picked up and put on my shoulder, where they can fly down to the ground again. I know they consent because after they land they come back for a second time, like a child being asked to be tossed into the air again. And again....
It is an act of hope to have a garden in times as uncertain and perilous as these. Ripping out the snarly invasion of plants that like the soil the way it is, I hold a vision of another year. I expect the world to still be a place where a garden is a possibility, where the woods will be lively enough that I will be hanging old cd's on strings, scrounging materials for a greenhouse and selecting seeds over the winter. It means I am seeing a life connected to life, honoring death, decay failure; blossoming, fruiting and maybe seeding if I can get seeds that Monsanto has not messed with. It means I believe my chickens will make it through a winter here and not all get carried off by someone with hungry babies to feed.
The Buddhists say that hope is a trick like regret.
Though they dance together, only one of them can fly.

no men

2017-08-14T17:28:00.004-07:00

Failing the presence of a rooster to lead them around the yard pointing out the dead mice, struggling insects and a patch of violets not yet ripped out by the roots the girls stay together, and stick close to the house.
This is the first batch of hens who are interested in spending the entire day either under the house or roosting on frames in the cellar. They will ascend to their coop, but will not go down the stairs in the morning, so I guess I'd better come up with a more attractive ramp. They look at me as though I had asked them to balance on a narrow ledge in stilettos, which is a fair assessment. A set of steps I found at the dump is their ramp, and it is probably a little too much to deal with first thing in the morning. Unlike hens of days passed, they have avoided the garden, which to be fair has been allowed to get overgrown with every weed in the Northeast except the edible ones, and looks like a place predators might be lying in wait.
My mother was a terrific gardener; I tend to get rashes and lose interest, but some transit of the great celestial beings caught me in their vortex today and I thought if I can't have a garden this year, I can at least get it set up for the next. After I had ripped out enough space to attract interest, the hens came and joined me, happily scratching around for snacks, and I remembered that being in the yard with chickens is a joy.
I love having people around who are glad to see me, and chickens always are. They are easily bribed with grapes and whole wheat bread, and the alpha always runs over and asks to be picked up. At least, I choose to interpret it that way, she runs over and crouches, seems to like being scratched under the wings, and I'm sorry if she is disappointed by being picked up to sit on my shoulder for a second before flying back to her kind, but it's the best I can do.
At night, I used to do a beak check when I had a big coop, but this one is tiny and even though there is enough room for them to spread out over the 2 perches, they clump together in a tight knot and I have to reach in and count bodies to make sure no independent thinker is sleeping in the hay bales under the house.
The girls sing to each other, it reminds me of middle school when the only good thing was singing and though I haven't learned the verses yet, I can join in on the chorus.

fourth day....

2017-07-25T09:08:00.001-07:00

Last night I went out to check on the girls, to make sure they had gone to roost, and they had, but had decided that access to the perches in the wire dog crate were better than clumping together safely in the plastic one.
I decided to chance it, because in the past, it has taken the local street gangs about a week before they noticed that I had chickens in the yard, and they tend to hunt less in the pouring rain.
My irresponsibility worked out, there were still 6 girls this morning, and so I let them out to forage, but they immediately headed for the forsythia and went to sleep in it.
A friend of mine who was a middle school teacher told me once that every class had a completely different group personality, and I am finding it to be true of groups of chickens too. This bunch of hens is more low key than I expected. They landed in the yard and have accepted everything without protest and have exhibited a general lack of adventurous spirit. In the past, I have had fliers, escape artists and explorers, but these are thoughtful, companionable and quiet. There might be more conversation when I find a rooster.
They are convincing me that they are to be named after authors instead of goddesses.... Jane, Charlotte, Emily, Alice, Maya Margaret and Zadie.

Chickens, part 3

2017-07-24T12:57:00.003-07:00

3 nights of new chickens, who are both smarter and more insistent than they looked when riding home in the box.
First night, they slept in a crate on the front porch,
but I had forgotten how messy and smelly chickens can be in a closed room.
Next day I moved them outside, hoping to get them used to where their coop will be when I put it together, added a plastic dog crate to the wire one so that they could have a safe place to sleep and more room to spread out.
Day 3 I let them out to wander the yard a bit, they headed directly for the porch and mooned about in a rhododendron bush in front of it all day.
Today it is raining, and they are under tarps and umbrellas in the makeshit coop, this is going to be the story for about another 10 days.
It hasn't taken long for them to associate me with food. I am realizing how incompetent having animals that depend on regularity makes me feel.
and as for names, well, they are probably going to be named for goddesses.

Chic Insomnia

2015-01-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

So, I put the heat lamp into the coop and an hour later it was off, dead, no explanation. The weather report was gleefully predicting overnight weather to compete with ice9, so alternatives had to be put in place. I thought of going up to the storage space and hauling out the giant dog crate. I thought if I put it in the cellar and could persuade them to stay there for the night, they'd be more comfortable but they are very suspicious of the cellar. It must look to them like a place chickens go and don't come back.
What I did have was a gro light, so I replaced the burnt out heat bulb with that, and the girls immediately perked up and started an excited conversation among themselves, interrupting each other, losing their train of thought, changing the subject, shouting one another down.
Well. [I thought] at least they won't freeze to death....
The next morning they were awake and staring off into the distance like Hari Krishna devotees.
There were extra eggs in the bin, though.
Off to the hardware store to buy another heat lamp and an exterior grade fixture. Worry about chickens being burned to death while captive were put at bay by the salesman who used to share his yard with chickens himself, and was too nice and gentle a person for me to admit to having inadvertently murdered babychicks a couple of summers ago using a heat lamp. I left with my reputation in tact and set up the light in the coop.
This worked, I woke up a few times in the night to look out my window to make sure there hadn't been a conflagration during the night, and this morning all was ticket-boo.
I went down to check on their water, and they had fouled it more than usual pushing each other around for the privilege of roosting on top of the heated container. The were happy to see me though, and one jumped up on my arm, sat down and did not wish to leave. I will assume, knowing how Avian Americans regard us featherless types as a nod to my body warmth and nothing more.

Freezer Burn

2015-01-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

I suppose it is the sun that makes the girls feel as though it is worth putting a beak outside the coop, that and how tired they are of each other all ready and it's only January 7th. "Two more months of inside living" I tell them, and they fix me with an unmoving avian gaze. "brwaaaa...." they mutter amongst themselves as though they think I don't know what they mean.
I bought a new heater for the coop this year; the one from years past made an interesting noise accompanied by a flash followed by some flickering before the cord melted at the point where it plugged into the exterior grade extension cord.
The new heater does not work.
The temperatures are predicted to be -30 or so tonight, I don't remember if that includes windchill, but who cares? It's too damned cold, and I woke up every hour last night wondering if I was going to find chickens gone tits up in the morning.
They were happy to see me, surged around asking for treats, glad of the leftover rice, tactfully hiding the bits of cabbage under other bits of cabbage and making cheerful sounds.
How they can do this is beyond my understanding. I just want to swath myself in electric blankets and sit somewhere with a nice book where nobody will ask me any questions for about a year. Well... at least until it warms up a bit.
Remembering the painful and horrifying experience of killing baby chickens with a heat lamp, I was worried about putting one up again, but it's that or frozen chickens, so I'm hoping it is far enough away from them to not be a hazard, but enough to take the worst chill off for these Reds who are supposed to be winter hardy. That might mean winter, but I don't think it means the kind of winters we are having lately, or this particular week. The Avian Americans don't complain much or for long, but that doesn't mean they don't suffer. My hope for this week is that they can get through it without tragedy as well as discomfort.

Cold Chicken

2014-11-21T11:16:00.003-08:00

It is too much to hope for a mild winter after the last few days, and counting our blessings here that we are not in Buffalo [ just a little schadenfreude going on…] with a 5' snow fall and more to come. Here it has just been damned cold, too damned cold for just before Thanksgiving, and the hens' first winter. Maeve, Magda, Martha, Minerva, Morgan & Mary don't know what any of this means yet, having only hatched out of a nice warm nest 6 months ago, but Mista Woosta is coming up on his 3rd round, so his behavior might be understandable.
A cold, grey and nasty morning, frozen everything and the girls are still motivated to turn over any leaf possible to see if there's something they missed yesterday, he comes out briefly has a look around, nails a hen or two and goes back to the perch until the sun has thawed the air out a little more.
By noon, the girls are racing around, being followed at a stately pace by their not very motivated caretaker.
If there's enough sun, they will clump together under a tree, being indistinguishable from the leaves and rouse themselves only if they see me, whom they have come to associate with the kinds of food they can't find on their own.
Candy bars, ice cream, cake and other specialties.
The heater in the coop has died, and I'm hoping the new one gets here soon. Though I am told that chickens can take it, I can't sit here in a warm house knowing I have birds who are re-enacting Jane Eyre only a few feet away.

egg revolt

2014-11-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

Last week, I found 3 eggs in the coop, the chickens didn't seem to know what they were, or how they got there and they stood around pointing at each other. Since then, nothing, I had nearly come to the point of deciding to get some additional older chickens and go through the troublesome adjustment period so I'm wondering if it was ruse on the part of whomever is the mindreader in the flock.
They are a little past the time by which they ought to be producing. I would not care for myself, but there are people in my house now that eat eggs on a regular basis.
These poor girls are having to put up with my reduced circumstances. I can't afford to replace the coop heater that died last spring, so they are going to have to rely on their reputation of being winter hardy for a while. I could maybe scare up some bales of straw and stack them around the coop for extra insulation, I know that if it were me, I'd be appreciative, I'm not very winter hardy myself.
This morning, The hens emerged into the sun followed closely by Mr. W, and Millie crouched to the ground. He stepped over her to get to a hen who was less willing, and I thought to myself, I know relationships like that.

Progress not Perfection

2014-11-01T17:10:00.002-07:00

The hens have begun to show a sign or two of avian intelligence, and it's a relief. When they first came here, they acted like a group of abused girls, keeping quiet whenever I came on the scene and muttering behind their feathers when they thought no one was listening.
After being without chicken conversation for a couple of months it was disappointing. I thought longingly of previous chickens who displayed invention, creativity and moxie. Pearl, in particular, my lovely undersized iconoclast who I like to think gave the bobcat's kittens indigestion.
I hoped that putting an experienced rooster into the mix would liven things up a bit, but Mista Woosta seemed to believe that standing around looking insouciant in a beret was enough effort to justify the quantities of hens he'd been given charge of.
He doesn't take things seriously at all, and this from a chicken who grew up down a dirt road where there are plenty of coyotes and other rough trade.
I had to insist that everyone waste the last of the beautiful warm days staying confined to their adjacent yard, because when let to scratch about on their own, they wandered off and stood around gazing at objects I could not see.
I realize that as a human, my priorities are not in order, but when night fell, they were still standing around, staring off into space.
Mista, meanwhile, had said the hell with it, and gone to roost, leaving the hens to figure it out.
This would never have happened on Buck's watch.
At the end of the first day of freedom, there were 3 hens and a rooster in the house, making it necessary to hunt down the sillier ones who were nestled under trees.
I can report that they are beginning to get the idea, they are traveling in clumps, sticking close to the guy, talking a little more, I think I have even heard them singing once or twice - and today I found 2 eggs!
Sometimes inadequate parents produce successful kids, maybe the kids looked around early on and thought they'd better get their act together if they wanted to escape a repeat of the parental trajectory. Maybe Mista Woosta subscribes to a similar laissez faire approach. Still, the same number of chickens are here that came over a month ago. I'm experiencing a dangerous optimism.

Confusion about the rules

2014-10-13T19:04:00.001-07:00

A more timid lot I would be hard pressed to find.
The new squire on his first day in the new yard with 6 new young girls stood around with a pleased expression on his beak, but when it came to moving them to safer surroundings he appeared to have better things to do. It was a little difficult to make out what those things were, but they appeared to consist primarily of lounging, preening and admiring the view.
By nightfall, I checked the coop and found him sound asleep in the center of the main perch with 3 hens nearby, and 3 hens missing.
This is a new record in my memory of avian negligence. I promised him that there would be a chicken yard set up to counterbalance the flaws in his custodial talents by tomorrow noon and went about the yard hunting for favorite alternate roosting sites.
I found the outsider [there is always one, and she is generally my favorite because I know just how she feels…] under the porch, not such a brilliant choice because it is also a favorite of the raccoons. [ your teenage girl wanders into a biker's bar…..]
The other two were 1/2 way up a ladder. Sound asleep. Complaints were registered and discussed once they were put safely inside, and since then all has been well.
I found a nice chicken gazebo that the previous tenants didn't care for, they saw it as more of a cage than a spa, but these poor girls having come from Agway view it more favorably.
There isn't much doubt in my mind that I'm going to be up against another problem that makes life for the slave class here less than ideal, I will tell them what I tell myself, that winter isn't personal.
Just like they let me know that their withholding eggs is not personal.

The new girls

2014-09-29T08:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke to the sound of someone moaning. At first I thought it was my granddaughter having a bad dream , but then I remembered that I had been given a rooster last night and put him in with the new hens who had been in residence for a day. After a couple of months in a chicken free environment, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing so I bought 6 pullets. The first part of the first day, they refused to leave the coop, then 3 of them refused to go back in. I spent some time with a flashlight looking for the roosting locations they preferred and found 2 of them on a ladder and the third under a bush near the house. They appear to know that the big house the humans live in is more desirable than their own so I thought a rooster would help them figure it out. Around here, you only need to say the word and people are showering you with free roosters. I chose a 2 year old Wyandotte, because I had heard they were docile to humans and after having a huge personality who eschewed docility, it sounded pretty good. I was not ready for the voice though. It isn't a conventional crowing sound, more like a long hoot. I am happy to note that there is now a conversation going on between Mr. Woosta and the girls, they were completely silent or only barely whispering amongst themselves until he came and I missed eavesdropping on their gossip and opinions.

Chickens.

2014-03-30T11:26:00.001-07:00

I am definitely going to restrict the movement of my avian neighbors. As soon as I let them out in the morning, they run like hell for my house and stand as close to the door as they can get for hours and stare at me while I try to get anything done.
I tried to distract them by putting up a large 3 sided mirror where they could admire themselves instead of insisting that I admire them all the time, but after about 15 minutes they figure out that it is only a reflection.
If you think you can work under the supervision of a chicken, think again. They are powerful thought transfer masters. They let me know what they think of my work.
"Not so great. Why don't you add some more red to that?"
"Why don't any of your landscapes have figures in them? Can't you draw people?"
This is why there is such a glut of chickenalia infesting ETSY. People who have decided it would be a good thing to have fresh eggs for breakfast try to get to work in the morning after stealing and eating someone's potential children have to endure the accusing looks of the slave Avians.
It becomes unavoidable that watercolors, oils, fiber art and welding is given over to images of chickens. You can't ignore what is in front of you, and if you live near chickens they always are; unless they are following you, and I can't recommend against that strongly enough if a rooster is involved.
It is clear. If I am going to get any landscapes painted that don't have chickens in them, or portraits of humans that look less like chickens, a fence is needed.

The more things change...

2014-03-29T15:48:00.004-07:00

There is a deceptive calm in having a rooster who is not a mean son of a bitch. I was not counting on Spring, though, and once again, I have a giant Maran rampaging out of the coop in the morning, jumping circles around the hens and fixing me with one steely eye. I don't need to understand Avian to know what he wants. Now that the temperature has risen enough that protests begin at dawn I know enough to realize that I had better show up at that coop door with a handful of grapes and lettuce if I know what is good for me.
I had this idea that a rhythm had been established, harmony embraced and detente reached over the winter. People were happy to sit on the perch near the heated water and the display of grain choices waiting for the assured delivery of nuts, berries and other treats.
Now I am being reminded, usually before dawn, that I am expected to see to the needs of my Avian neighbors, that is if I want their cooperation in the area of tick control.
Buck is willing to climb over the snow bank, skate over the ice flow and chase the cat in order to get to the picnic table where he stands and tries to jump up to the wild bird's feeder.
The squirrels stay away when he is patrolling the area, so I guess I should be grateful, but it's going to take a lot of clorox to make that picnic table useable again.
This Buck, in his second incarnation, has all the beauty of himself before, but none of the desire to strip the flesh off my legs. I appreciate this, but I am not certain I trust it. He has begun to make the same noises, in the same key, telling the girls of an intruder's approach, gurgling happily over finding some horrible piece of trash in the yard to eat, or letting me know what he thinks of having to share the path with humans. I had better not, in my optimism think that I can get away with not fencing in the plants and flowers I hope to keep and have the use of this season, there's only so much that may be expected from a chicken. They may not fly, but they remember flight. For insecurity, there's nothing to beat a hostage who remembers his freedom.

Chickens again

2013-11-13T14:31:00.003-08:00

Well, a long time has gone by since my last post, and there have been some changes in the yard, but instead of bringing the story up to date, I'll just plunge in with today's report.
Prologue: Last week, my son in law sent me and email with the subject line "Woosta?" and even though it was a retrograde Mercury I was weak, and agreed to take on this animal, even though I only have 2 girls left, both non-oviparous by now. They are not interested in romance, they are, I think, a couple, so I had my doubts about how this was going to go, but all the same, I went and picked up the big handsome rooster and brought him home.
In transferring him from cage to coop, he muscled past me and ran off in an easterly direction putting his full attention on the job.
Well, that's that, I thought, but today, reports of a rooster hanging out in the parking lot up the road came to me, and so I stalked him for about an hour, following him at a distance around and around the woods, up the glacial erratics, throwing pine cones near him as he skittered out on the ice. He wouldn't let me get within 30 feet of him, but like I tell my granddaughter, "You gotta sleep some time".
He climbed a tree and before roosting, let me know what he thought of me and my attitude in short sentences. I waited until it was quite dark and netted him, popped him in the coop and retired for a nice cup of tea.
He has been on his own in the woods for a week, it has been cold at night, his only food has been forage, he has not been under cover the way my princesses have been, his comb was frostbitten, and yet he did not get grabbed by one of the many predators in the Sanctuary.
He has earned a place in the coop here, and a name: Buck Rogers.

Ain't No Messiah Here For Us Chickens

2012-12-27T13:59:00.002-08:00

So on Christmas while folks were eating some of the animals that donated their feeding dish to be Baby Jesus' cradle, I got to thinking; what is Christmas about for the animals? They sacrifice more than their place settings. Now their lives and even the integrity of their genetic codes are on the line. Some of them give us hearts or bits of hearts so that we can continue playing golf and shopping.
Buck and the girls received cat food [ let's not get started on what goes into making cat food ] grapes, apples, mixed salad greens, dried fruits and plenty of nuts, but is that compensation for the ravaging havoc we inflict on them as a slave species?
The weather was nasty, a beak or two poked out for a sniff was as far as anyone would go.
Last winter, Buck lured his girls out to forage when it was bitter, icy and even if there was some snow, but now they have gotten used to a warm coop where food doesn't have to be worked for and greens get home delivery. Today, I shoveled a path for them, put some treats on the ground and went away, assuming they'd come out eventually. Hours went by, I could hear them in the coop jockeying for prime position in the nesting boxes - I heard Buck trying coax one or the other of them into giving him a little sugar. Then I heard the "let's get ready to roost" chatter.
They are no different from anyone else in the winter who doesn't want to go out tearing up the slopes on slats or blades, or tennis rackets. In the move toward more efficiency, or as my family would characterize it, laziness, Even chickens like to do what makes the most sense. Why make work for themselves? Only in chickens, it isn't considered a sin, therefore, no salvation is needed, and no Savior.......- unless you are a battery hen.

S.A.D. Chicken

2012-12-21T20:54:00.002-08:00

In the very small, [but I am certain, festooned with multiple ridges] brain of Buck, the weather is my fault, and I must pay.
I have stepped up the bribes.
It has been rainy, or cold, or windy, so the coop got cleaned on the first nice day. I was told in pecks of one syllable;
"The eggs are not your beeswax."
"Keep your hands off the feeding tray and don't touch the water dispenser." he advised.
"Get away from that door" he suggested.
Later after Buck was finished marching around getting all the girls in before dark I made the mistake of being too near their little door before he had roosted. Ka-THUMP! I heard as he leapt down, rushing for the door, planting a well aimed snap on the web of my hand.
He has been bad tempered lately.
I see a pattern here; he goes along for awhile, pretending not to notice me walking back and forth to the car, not turning an eye toward any red object I might have in hand until we have had a few days of rain. The lack of sun acts on him like a depressant.
He becomes moody.
He broods on prior injustices.
He remembers he was once a proud velociraptor.
Though his brothers and comrades have been put to death - rolled in batter made from their children and run through the fryer, he has survived. He is alive for a reason, and there are days when he takes up the flag of Avian Liberation in his beak with cold determination.
He will not listen to reason.
He is not swayed by grapes.
He will stop to eat them but then fortified with their sweet juice, remembers the task at hand.
The humans must pay.
Three of the New Girls - New Pearl, Stella and Golda don't understand that there is a revolution going on. When I come out into their yard, they run over and stand very close to my shoes looking hopeful. They allow me to scratch their stomachs, to pick them up - they have even been willing to sit on my shoulder. Buck looks up in horror.

Update......

2012-12-15T07:49:00.002-08:00

In the 2 month hiatus there have been some changes. Just as I was feeling smug and superior about having kept my chickens in one flock for as long as I had, I lost 2 in the space of a week. I later found out that my neighbor who has a small flock about 1/2 of a mile away had lost several of hers to fisher cats. The fishers had been prying the metal siding off her coop to get at her hens, and she dealt with it by moving the hens to a friend's house until the fisher went looking elsewhere for dinner. She told me she had been unsuccessful in trapping the beast and asked if I had been losing chickens. I would have appreciated the warning in advance, but as it was, I lost Mae and Pearl leaving Buck with 2 ladies. I was going to see how that went, but then a friend [the one who landed me with Buck in the first place] told me about a man who wanted to cull his flock of some hens, and sucker that I am, figuring that taking care of Buck and 2 girls is no different from 6, went to the other side of the Merrimac river to collect 2 Delawares, 1 Buff Orphington and 1 barred Plymouth. Very charming girls, beautiful and well kept, and introduced them to the coop.
This time I tried to be responsible and divided the coop w/some chicken wire so that the new girls could be viewed and criticized by the established hens without being picked on. That worked the first night.
The second night I checked on them, and the Plymouth [Zebra] was muscling over the top of the fence to get closer to Buck, and Stella, one of the Delawares was squeezing around the edge through the tunnel of nesting boxes with the same purpose in mind. Buck sat quietly on his perch eyes half closed, enjoying the attention.
Day 3, I gave up and tore out the netting while the chickens formed into a flock and roamed around the yard, ruining what was left of my perennials and pushing all the piles of raked leaves back on to the walk.
Buck had been docile during the time of only having 2 hens to bully and pester, but now with more he is busy running back and forth, keeping them in line, making sure they stay together and making sure I understand that he is taking no nonsense from me. The first couple of evenings, I was getting the chickens in, and he made it very clear to me that I was interfering. He seemed to take it personally that I was telling him how to do his job, and once he turned and looked at me, unmistakably telling me so. Then he bit my shoes, ignored me as he went back to work getting the girls in to the coop.
All the same, I have since then had an evening or two when I have had to pick up 'New Pearl' and 'Golda' to put them in to the coop because they were standing around finishing up a cigarette and chatting as it was getting dark.
After 1 1/2 years I have realized that I am a slave to the chickens. They have destroyed what yard I had, left fewmets all over the place and gnawed my herbs into oblivion, yet I still find them charming, and prefer their singing and chatter to almost any gathering of humans. Buck goes through periods of calm, and just when I relax and think he's mellowed, he lets me know what's what.... Then we have to play " Who's the Bitch?".

chicken jail

2012-10-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

As the weather slides into seasonal change like an out of control car, I'm trying to grab every minute of every portion of every day that has something to recommend it.
The chickens feel the same.
They loiter longer than they should in the yard, and stay awake talking until it is completely dark. The last few days I have had to be somewhere that made it impossible for me to get back here and close up the hen house, so my only choice has been to keep them in all day and bribe them with treats. This morning I opened the door, and they all assumed the same posture. Leaning their weight forward on their bodies, extending their necks and peering at me carefully with one eye.
"You've got to be kidding me" they say.
"What could be more important than my need to ruin the landscape?" they ask.
Buck tries to grab my face as I refresh their water and put down a bowl of lettuce and apples for them.
I am, however, wearing a helmet and visor, so all he gets is a sort of percussive feeling down his beak. Not nearly as satisfying as warm flesh, I hope.
One recent dusk, I lost another hen, Mae who always roosted right next to Buck, [which goes to show that there's always some woman who will like any man, no matter how pushy he is] but the hens I still have always get as far away from him as possible. I have started scattering some of the morning food under the edge of the coop so that they may have breakfast without that lout climbing all over them as they are buttering their toast. The result, Barbie's feathers are coming back, as is her confidence.
I still have Pearl, my favorite, best chicken because though she is little, she beats out the others for resourcefulness and independence.
After a bit more than a year, my opinion is that keeping chickens in a medium security facility is disappointing. This time of year brings out the motivation in the larger predators, the raccoons [dwarf bears] have torn the doors off the shed in order to investigate empty jars and containers, somebody grabbed Mae, and must have been sharp about it, because I never heard a thing. Aside from the chicken increasing their time pressed up against the side of the house, or perching on my bicycle on the porch, they have not expressed grief or opinions.
I don't know what's next, but I predict a bad tempered chicken coming out of the coop in the morning tomorrow if the weather reports are correct, and we have a nice day. I'd better have a broom.

tyrant chicken.

2012-08-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Buck has been in the yard for over a year now, and rarely attacks me anymore.
The mark I have on my leg from his last gratuitous assault has faded nearly completely. He has utterly destroyed the broom, though. He can be standing around, gurgling and chuckling to his girls but if he sees that thing from the corner of his eye, his mental state blossoms from peace and contentment to rage and revenge.
Some months ago I tracked down Buck's previous owner who characterized him as an evil chicken who wouldn't allow anyone in the coop unless they had a broom for protection. I find that if I have a broom, Buck is busy moving heaven to see that the broom stays away from the coop.

When I pull my car into the yard, Buck comes running excitedly over, hoping for a treat. If I'm carrying a bag, he will attack it, but I'm pretty sure he's hoping to poke a hole is something that will then spill on the ground. He calls the hens over in a congenial tone, which is not the warlike one he uses when he believes he's protecting them.
My daughter is still afraid of him, and won't go outside without the dog or me to stand between her and the dangerous beak.

Having firmly established his reputation as a force to be reckoned with, he is free to strut around the yard importantly and proclaim himself the master of all anyone surveys.
I know men like that.....

Chicken Purgatory

2012-08-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

Bette had been coming out of the coop and wandering at the outer periphery of the flock. Having lost her alpha status, she lost the heart to muscle in. She avoided the others, and they acted in a way that drove her off by herself. What I probably should have done was what a friend suggested; taking her inside and turning her into a pet chicken instead of the co-housing members the others are. I am allergic to chickens, however, and having a summer of battling my hysterical immune system, I was reluctant to invite another crisis. Excuses.
Every night as the others went in to roost, I looked around for her. She would not go in to the safety of the coop that she'd refused to leave for the first 10 days after her attack. She was finding places further away from everyone and became harder to find.
Two nights ago, I couldn't find her.
Up to that point, she gave herself away by talking to herself before going to sleep. As someone who spends possibly way too much time alone, I know that it is easy to start talking to one's selves out loud. She could have been doing that. She could have been saying prayers.
She could have been asking the great clawed and furry gods of death to come and finish the job.
She escaped them once, but life wasn't what it once was, and she was hostage to the region in between a good chicken's life and someone's digestive tract.
Some people who have had near death experiences say they no longer fear death, and that they were even reluctant to return to finish this life.
Last night I couldn't find her. It was dusk, and the beak count was 5, and I circled the house and the yard hoping to hear her evening chatter, but no clucking was going on, no sound at all.
The remaining girls, now back to bridge club numbers have been treating her as though she were already gone for some time now. Chickens seem to be able to enjoy what is going on, or wait patiently until it is over with. They engage with their entire hearts and attention to the moment. The main flock knew something was wrong with Bette, and that it wasn't going to turn around.
There are events which mark us, and for who knows how long, render us as carriers if it's grief, vessels if joy.
Grave illness changes us, profound disappointment, trauma - even a turn of great good luck. People have been posting on FB how our thinking creates reality, but I recoil from that, it is too obvious to me that life creates us, and the spectrum of response we have to life is all we have to work with, and that spectrum has precious few answers.
For a grieving hen, it's a simple thing. When you can't be part of the flock, you can be part of the food chain.

Chicken Catcher

2012-08-07T17:02:00.001-07:00

In the Northern Latitudes, in the early days of rail travel, there was a shovel-like affair attached to the front of the engine called a cow-catcher. It is this principle that I employ in persuading everyone that indeed, it is time to roost.

Every so often the AA's decided to stay up late. I have tried to find a correspondence between astrological cycles and this behaviour; no dice. It might be meteorological. I notice their conversations change with the barometer.

So, back to the chicken catching, I have a piece of the fence that I wrap around myself like an apron or long skirt of dubious couture to prevent more bruising of the type Buck might be in the mood to inflict if he sees no impediment to doing so.

If I turn the apron around, so that from the hen's side it's convex, it appears to them that they will be scooped up like the actors in Soylent Green, and they hurry up the ramp.

Buck is the only one I have to push along. He side-steps, he trips over the obstacles in back of him that he cannot see. He protests. He tries to get a piece of me.

Once in, I hear him grumbling to his ladies, and their responses of sympathy ....rough translation: "Yes, dear.....".

I suspect they listen to his grievances only partially, knowing that it is politic to pretend to care about the tyrant's wounded ego, knowing when he has made his point, he will move on to other things. "Yes, dear..."

I know women like that.

Live Chickens

2012-08-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

Two weeks have passed, and Bette is acting like a chicken again, though her status may not be regained. I am so glad that she's all in one piece, her wings work, and though she is beset with a new reluctance, progress is being made. Today I didn't let any of the Avian Americans out of the fenced in area and by the end of the day they were all standing around together waiting for Buck to give the orders to go in for the night.
Buck has tried to inflict his attentions on Bette, so I suppose he feels as though she has recovered, but when I go down to close the chicken door and check numbers of beaks and toes, she has not gone in with the rest. At first I thought maybe she was so despondent that she wanted the predator to come back and finish her off - I have known woman like that - but that's not it. She roosts, but under the ramp to the door. Is she hoping to be overlooked? She allows me to pick her up and put her in the coop, but I've been putting her in the nesting box, because otherwise she wants to come back out and acts as though I have put her in a room where a cocktail party is going on, and she is incorrectly dressed, or just came out of rehab.
Anyhow, she has survived. I think she's improving. I'll know for certain when she stops being easy to pick up. The docility is disturbing.