Chicken Little

I have always wanted chickens. When I was a little girl we had horses, and my mother dabbled in other farm animals: a steer named Moo that we ate the following year, pigs for three years in a row (and I still remember all their names, and how delicious they were), ducks named Mike and Ike that we finally got rid of because all they did was poop in the yard. But never chickens. We tried once. Mom came home with a beautiful Bantam rooster (Henry) and five chicks. I spent countless hours in the barn playing with the chicks as they grew, hoping I could figure out whether they were hens or roosters, convinced they'd lay eggs any second and I'd miss it. Then one morning they were all perched on the barn beams with old Henry, crowing with adolescent voices for all they were worth. Yup - five new roosters. What were the odds?

Off they went to their next home. I don't know where they ended up, actually, but I was so disillusioned by the lack of cuddly egg layers I didn't really care.

The desire for chickens - well, hens - never left. Throughout my adulthood I have eyeballed each place I've moved to, trying to figure out how to coop a few birds. With my transient lifestyle, it has never been practical. So imagine my enthusiasm when we moved in here, with ample barn space, a coop already set up (my mother in law's long-time residents went into the freezer last year after they stopped laying), and the relative permanence to establish a flock. I admit, I went a little crazy, even for me.

We were late into the game. The pre-ordered chicks were already spoken for everywhere I looked. After a month of searching, I had just about given up on having chickens this year when we got a call from Agway. Our first acquisition was a chance set of three guinea keets that Agway had as leftovers. We named them Parsley, Sage and Rosemary, and I spent quite a bit of time gazing at them in their plastic tub. When they were about four weeks old, along came the first of the chicks: a set of five a little boy in the next town hatched from eggs, but couldn't keep. The kids and I named them Barley, Penelope, Puffin, Quiche and Chickadee, and they took up residence with the herb birds. It wasn't long before they all outgrew their little plastic tub, so out to the barn they went, heat lamp and all. There was now space in the brooder box, and my chick mania was in full swing, so 13 new chicks, hatched for me by a woman on Craigslist, went into the plastic box. Colin tried to name them all after condiments, but unlike our first five, who are all different breeds and easy to tell apart, these are all yellow and black barnyard mutts, and pretty much identical. He resorted to randomly pointing and saying, "That must be [ketchup/mustard/relish]." A week later we were in Blue Seal and heard the unmistakable sound of new keets peeping. With our meager flock of three guineas at home, I couldn't resist buying six more. Sam started rolling his eyes. When it rains, it pours...chicks.

About this time, we learned that the coop in the barn needed to go. My father in law is building an office above it, and the keets, as they reached their teen weeks, had started to squawk. Loudly. Beyond loudly. They'd put a construction site to shame for all the noise they could make with little to no provocation. We selected a smaller barn across the property, what used to be the blacksmith shop. It took us most of the summer, what with kids and schedules, but we finally managed to complete a new coop in there just last week. Now the issue was how to move 27 birds, including three adult guinea hens the size of turkeys?

With the help of a huge dog kennel and our neighbor's daughter, nicknamed "the Chicken Whisperer" for her ability to calm even terrified birds, the feat was managed with minimal damage to us or the birds. It took six trips - all the chickens went in two loads, then the six new keets, then one trip each for the three adult guineas, a feat that involved a blanket, a tunnel, and a lot of yelling and patience, and that probably would have won us a Funniest Home Videos award. They now reside in their outbuilding, squawking to their hearts' content. They still haven't been allowed outside, which pains me, but they need to establish roots in their new home first. I haven't built their fence yet, anyway.

left to right: Chickadee, Barley, Puffin, Quiche, and Penelope. Background: Parsley, Sage and Rosemary

Barley and Chickadee

But what is it about these birds? They won't lay for another couple of months, so there really isn't any purpose to them yet. They poop a lot, they are noisy, and they don't like to cuddle - in fact, they're downright alarmed by our presence most of the time. But I love them. I could stand in the coop and watch them for an hour if it weren't for the demands of my actual children. Sam found me last night at twilight, eye to eye with Barley, our one definite rooster, just chilling. We stared at each other for a good ten minutes, and I was loathe to leave. There's a peace in watching them go about their chicken business and act out their chicken politics and drama. There's such simple beauty in their innocent little bird eyes. I love the lay of Chickadee's feathers around her neck. I'm fascinated by the iridescent colors of Barley's tail. Penelope carries her leg feathers like a southern belle's ruffles. I really hope by some miracle the odds will stack the same way they did when I was a kid - impossibly to one side - and we won't have any more roosters; I don't know that I will be able to bear the freezer journey. At least my favorites, the first ones with names, are safe: one rooster, four hens. Perfect.