Category: Chickens

As I went out to close up the chicken coops this evening after they should have all been on their roosts, I was briefly startled to see one of the hens still out, and looking at me like she needed help. Then I remembered; the inner door to that coop had been closed earlier, and I’d forgotten to open it so they could get inside. Sure enough, there were the other two chickens that slept in that coop, at the top of the ladder in front of the closed door. One of them, the bantam (miniature) rooster, hopped down and came over to me as I came into their enclosure, so when I opened the door, only Little Wing saw it open and went in. The other two were still just looking at me, seemingly looking for help. I was just considering picking them up and putting them into the coop when I heard Little Wing calling them from inside.

Chickens have a specific sound they make to call each other, but it is usually used to call others to some sort of tasty morsel or food. It is used mostly by roosters to call the hens to a treat he’s found, or by mother hens teaching their chicks how to find food. Sometimes roosters also use it when they think they’ve found a good spot to lay an egg and want to let the hens know (and there’s another more specific sound they use for that as well).

After Little Wing called them, the other two found their way in fairly quickly.

When we first moved the ‘front yard flock’ of chickens into the hoophouse, only one hen was laying eggs, and some of the chickens were missing feathers. Both were things that are fairly normal for the time of year it was; chickens molt, and replace all their feathers so that they can have fresh feathers for winter to keep them warm. This takes a lot of energy for them and also causes them to slow or stop laying altogether for a little while.

Last fall, though, they didn’t slow down nearly as much as this year. And some of them seemed to be about done molting, but they weren’t starting to lay again. Chickens seem to lay better during their molt and times of stress (like a fall where the onset of cold is sudden) if their needs are being met well. Egg laying can be a clue to their health, even though there are factors that can cause them to slow down that don’t have to do with stress or their health (such as the shorter hours of daylight in the winter). Trying to judge how much of a slowdown is healthy, and how much could be avoided with good care is one of those things even experienced chicken keepers debate and disagree on. It seemed clear that the situation of the ‘front yard flock’ could be improved at least.

Once in the hoophouse, the chickens were able to move about and scratch around more, searching for greens and bugs and anything else that might be good to eat, and, once they had scratched up some areas, to take dust baths. Dust bathing helps keep parasites off of the chickens, and they seem to really enjoy it. They kick dust or dirt up into their feathers and roll around in the hole they create. When they’re done, they get up and shake out their feathers vigorously.

Now, most of the chickens are looking very sleek with their new feathers and they are starting to lay eggs again. And one young hen has grown very friendly and follows me around whenever I go out there…

Ever since we got the hoophouse, it has had a connection with our chickens. When we needed compost to add to the soil in the hoophouse, the first place I looked was in the chicken yard. There is a compost pile there made up of the chickens’ old bedding and droppings. When weeding around areas that had been planted (or were about to be planted), the weeds would go into a bucket for the chickens. The chickens would also get any insect pests (mostly caterpillars) that were found on the crops. In the summer, the chickens weren’t too interested in the weeds; there were plenty of greens in their yards to choose from, so they might pick out a few favorite plants to nibble at, but they were more excited when they got caterpillars. Once winter came, though, they were suddenly eager to devour bucketfuls of weeds every day. I started intentionally leaving patches of weeds until they were of good size and pulling leaves off of them without even trying to pull the roots out. Things grow more slowly in the winter. I could hardly keep up with the chickens’ appetite for greens. The leafy parts of crops like carrots and radishes could also go to the chickens, and I even gave them some of the greens I was growing for us to eat (especially when they were most abundant). When chickens are able to eat greens, the yolks of their eggs are a rich yellow orange. When they aren’t they are a very pale yellow. Our eggs had once been very pale in the winter, and the chickens obviously craving greens. The hoophouse helped change that.

This year, we have moved some of our chickens inside the hoophouse for the first time. They are in a section that has not been used yet, really, and the chickens will be helping to prepare that area for growing things. The chickens frequently end up confined to their coops in the winter simply because they don’t much like walking around in the snow. The ‘front yard flock’ (which is the flock we moved into the hoophouse) doesn’t have a particularly large coop, so they will have more room than they would in their coop. On sunny days it can get quite warm in there too.

So far, they seem to be doing quite well in their new home.