Herding Chickens

Fern Glen Inn • www.ferngleninn.blogspot.com

Whoever coined the phrase "herding cats" clearly never had chickens. Or at least never had chickens on the run.

I returned from a walk this afternoon to discover that the ladies -- all six of them -- had escaped their pen and were ranging freely. I'm tempted to say they hatched a plan but I don't want to inflict my poultry sense of humour on you (sorry, couldn't resist). Planned or otherwise, they all flew the coop today.

Luckily, they didn't wander too far from their hen house. They had the whole wide world at their disposal but just scratched up the dirt within a 20 foot radius of their home. In fact, I only realized they were out because Saba saw them first.

I knew something had Saba's attention because she stopped suddenly, dropped her head low, cocked her ears forward and took a few slow, measured steps. Just like when she's stalking a squirrel. Or when she's ready to pounce in front of Casey (her buddy, the basset hound) to try to tease him into playing. I don't know if Saba was thinking snack time or playtime, but when I realized her gaze was fixed on one of our own dear hens, I didn't wait to find out.

I escorted Saba safely into the house, grabbed a tub of bird seed and went back to round up the ladies. I also took a moment to wish that Jim, aka the chicken-whisperer, was home to deal with this instead of me.

As I've mentioned, herding chickens is no easy task. For one thing, they're fast. Chickens can run like nobody's business. I've also discovered (during previous jail breaks) that chickens can and will fly if pursued with vigor. If approached slowly, they scatter. There's no catching them, at least not if I'm the catcher, and I'm a little bit afraid of them as I am with all birds. So even if I could get close enough to grab one, I wouldn't. I just couldn't.

So I had to outwit them. First, I propped the door to the hen house wide open then circled way back behind the farthest-ranging chicken. Then I started throwing small handfuls of bird seed toward the open door.

Chickens are remarkably curious and decidedly food-motivated. After half a dozen pings and bounces of seeds against the coop wall and on the hard ground, the chicken closest to the action moved in to see if there was something edible going on. Slowly, one by one, the rest of the ladies came to check out the commotion. I swear chickens have a spidey sense when it comes to food because even the two who were out of sight on the far side of the coop eventually came bobbing around the corner.

As the chickens gathered, I started tossing the bird seed through the doorway into the hen house and the hens just followed the food. As soon as I counted all six little cluckers in the house, I closed the door and that was the end of their adventure for the day. And mine, too.

So perhaps it wasn't such a monumental task after all, but it does leave me wondering one thing: Would it have been easier or more difficult herding cats instead of chickens?

What about the chickens?

The question on everyone's mind is "what do you do with the chickens in the winter?". Okay, maybe it's not on everyone's mind, and it's not likely keeping you up at night, but it is a question we're frequently asked by friends and guests. And since this is our first winter with the ladies, we've had to do some leg work to figure it out.


Since our chickens are layers and not meat birds—ie. we got them for their eggs and not for the roasting pan—we'll keep them over the winter and not send them off to the local abattoir. Knowing this, we built the hen house with our heavy winters in mind. (Before Jim rolls his eyes all the way out of his head, I should clarify that when I say we built the hen house, I mean Jim and our neighbour, Bob, built the hen house.) 


It's a compact coop, the idea being that we could move it around to different parts of the yard, but it ended up being so heavy we can't budge it without Bob's tractor. The reason? It has more insulation per square inch than our own house! It's also positioned in a nicely sheltered spot, protected from the prevailing west winds and with some southern exposure. 


Insulation and location aren't enough, though. Chickens' feathers are great for keeping their bodies warm, but apparently their feet and crowns are susceptible to frostbite. Plus, the coop has to be warm enough to keep their drinking water from freezing. So we added heat with a simple 175w red heat bulb. It looks a bit like a club scene, but it makes for a nice warm coop and the ladies seem to be happy.


For now, we're still giving them access to their outdoor pen, and they're often outside regardless of the weather. Soon, though, the snow will be too deep and the really cold temperatures will settle in. Then we'll have to keep the girls in all day, every day. I guess this is where the expression "cooped up" comes from. We're thinking of getting them some cat toys so they don't get bored. Really.


They do have a window for some natural light, but Jim's planning on rigging up another light fixture—one with a plain, white bulb—that we can turn on during the day so the ladies aren't just in the dark red light all the time.

Egg production will drop and eventually stop for the winter. Partly due to the shorter daylight hours and partly to the stress of the cold, but for now we're still getting 6 eggs a day. That's one from each hen. Our neighbours up the road have 26 hens and they've already slowed down to less than 10 eggs a day. This could mean our ladies are spoiled, pampered chooks. But that's fine by me. You go girls!

Chickens and Eggs

 Fern Glen Inn • www.ferngleninn.blogspot.com

Now we know which came first! In our case, anyway, it was the chickens. The eggs soon followed, but the ladies—young hens that they are—are not up to full production yet.

It was after chicken-sitting for our neighbours last fall that we realized we, too, could make a nice home for a little flock of laying birds. So it was that we (that would be Jim and our neighbour, Bob) built a sturdy little hen house and placed an order for half a dozen ready-to-lay red hens.

The birds arrived two weeks ago and have settled in quite nicely. The term "ready-to-lay" means the hens are delivered just around the time they're starting to lay eggs. I guess that would make them adolescent chickens? We didn't get any eggs the first few days but then the ladies started getting to work.

What I didn't know—and what our neighbours have assured us is quite normal—is that a young chicken's first few eggs are very small. Our first egg was teensy but already the eggs are getting bigger. I took a photo of our first egg and a later egg beside a store-bought one to show the scale.

As egg production increases, we'll be using our very own eggs in the breakfasts we serve to guests. It doesn't get fresher than that! 

It also turns out that chickens are good hosts. Er, hostesses. Some of our guests have enjoyed visiting the hens and watching their antics. Who knew that chickens playing "grape keep away" could be so entertaining? 

While we do hope our chickens have a nice lifestyle, they aren't exactly free-ranging. They're confined to an outdoor pen (in addition to their hen house) due to potential predators, dogs who think they would make good playmates (Saba!), and the birds' penchant to wander. I've told Jim our next big project should be to engineer a vast, modular, movable pen system so the ladies will think they're free range. Until then, the ladies seem pretty content with their plot of grass, some sand to roll in, and daily treats of fruit trimmings.

Next time you visit, come meet Henrietta, Gladys, Lola, Annabelle, Clara and Fanny!

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Read our update on chickenhood here.