The Chicken Coop

Republic

of Grass

The Happiest Chickens in Kansas

I read somewhere that the term “animal husbandry” derived from the Old Norse phrase “hus/bond,” meaning bonded to the household. The term described an “ancient symbiotic contract” between humans and domestic animals, a beneficial interdependency in which humans had a sacred responsibility for the care of animals. Industrialized confinement agriculture has all but done away with this lovely concept. There are still some of us who honor it.

I am not exaggerating when I say that my life was profoundly altered by the entry of sixteen little chicks into the world on April 20, 2004. I refer to my hens as The Happiest Chickens in Kansas. This is a claim that would be difficult to prove, but even more difficult to disprove. This page is an homage to my poultry.

Zen & the Art of Chicken Maintenance

Chronology & Introductions

Chicken Nuggets from Tallgrass Tales

I get asked about my chickens fairly often. Seems most people like chickens and have a grandma or a neighbor who used to raise them. Lots of people ask if we have a rooster. We don’t. A rooster is unnecessary to the getting of nice brown eggs; he is only essential to producing future generations of chickens.

Inside of a hen there is an absolutely marvelous production facility in which water, grains, grasses, fruit and vegetable scraps and, yes, insects are converted into the incredible edible egg. The physical facility consists of a single ovary, a funnel-shaped infundibulum and a two-foot-long oviduct. The egg begins as only a yolk (without a punch line yet), with the egg white, shell membrane and shell gradually accreting during the long trip down the oviduct. Finally, the egg color pigment is added at the end of the process, at which point the hen gets the urge to hop up in her little nesting box for a spell, and voila! an egg pops out, accompanied by a raucous announcement, the classic buck-buck-buck-bu-CAWK!

One of the Harvey sisters has taken a special liking to me. After a few preliminary pecks on my shoe and my pants, she likes to hop right up on the arm of my chair so we can literally see eye to eye, our faces less than a foot apart. Chicken vision is a very interesting system. With eyes on the sides of their heads, chickens can see much more of the world at one time than we can see; they can almost see behind themselves. On the other hand, their forward vision is incomplete; they can never see an object with both eyes at once. So, the nearly ceaseless bobbing of a chicken’s head is essential to building a three-dimensional picture. This is fascinating, but also just a bit disconcerting when Miss Harvey comes to sit in intimate range. I often get the feeling that I should be bobbing my head too, lest she think I’m not as interested in her as she is in me.

The other night I was sitting outside watching my chickens cavort in the grass. I was slouched in my camp chair with my legs crossed exactly the way I was taught not to, the ankle of one foot resting on the knee of my other leg. This unladylike posture, it turns out, makes an excellent perch for a chicken. Friendly Miss Harvey, who usually hops up on the arm of my chair, chose instead to jump up on the bridge I’d built with my leg. She stood looking curiously at me for a minute or two and then took another thirty seconds to shine her beak on the leg of my overalls. No sooner had she hopped down when one of the Gandhi sisters came over and untied my right shoe. While I leaned down to retie it, she turned her attention to untying my left shoe.

This has surely got to be a little-known fact: chickens snore. Yes, they do. One evening, long after chicken bedtime, I stood by the window of the chicken house, as I sometimes like to do, listening to the dear little noises they make. I guess I’d never listened so far into their sleep cycle before. There it was, a sweet little trilling sound, like a cross between a toddler blowing bubbles into her milk and the music that sparkling cider might make if it could sing a tune when you pour it into a crystal glass. That’s the best I can do. Just trust me, chickens snore. It’s one of the sweetest sounds I’ve ever heard.

Among the Chickenese phrases I have come to recognize are hello and good morning; thank you; I laid that one and I’m so proud; water, please; open this darn gate; and here she comes! As I’ve told a number of people, in middle age I care a great deal less about whether or not people like me, but my heart just sings every single time I step out the door and look up to see chickens barreling toward me from all over the yard as fast as their little legs will carry them. It is my steadfast belief that they think of me as family; I can do no less than think the same of them.

Click here for the chicken's first birthday party

I’ve noticed that there are quite a few of us who look at life in a way that tends to infuse the whole enterprise with interest and excitement. Generally, I’d say, people who live this way see everyday life as an ongoing series of experiments, with many hypotheses and ever-shifting variables, outcomes, and conclusions. Persistent curiosity seems to be the driving force behind this way of being in the world, while faith provides the ballast.

TGT

The most sophisticated computer program in the world, I realized this morning, could not impress me more than the complex DNA instructions according to which Little Red’s cells are crafting these exquisite, intricate feathers to replace what was so swiftly and thoughtlessly purloined by a dog.

TGT

For all their pluckiness, chickens will not be changing the world anytime soon. They are lovers of the status quo. The way things are right now is just fine with them, thank you very much.

TGT

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Personal greetings from the chickens

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