It’s officially Spring. After this especially long winter I’ve been counting down to the season more than usual. First the crocuses and snowdrops came up. Then they were replaced by daffodils. Now I’m waiting to see how many tulip bulbs made it over the winter (the squirrels seem to take a 50% tax on them every year). The birds sing constantly and sometimes a woodpecker raps on our brick chimney hoping to excavate a nest. The days are long again. There’s a lot to look forward to. In the United States everyone is counting down the days until they’re eligible for a vaccine and enthusiastically planning the things they’ll do and places they’ll go once there are things to do and places to go to again.
The chickens have also been affected by the spring weather. They quieted over the winter when they slowed or stopped their laying because the days got too short and too cold. But over the last month there’s been an explosion of sound from the coop. Some of it is just their increasing complaints that they want to be let outside. “We know it’s nice out and we know you’re there so we’re going to whine until you open the door and let us run around in the yard!” (Unfortunately, this tactic is highly effective.) It’s also the sound of the egg song, a cacophony that humans don’t have an explanation for. It might be meant to lead predators away from the nest by making the hen too loud of a target to resist or it might be a celebration of sorts, “Hurrah an egg has been laid!” It does feel like the latter is more likely, especially when the rest of the flock joins in with a wild discord of voices that somehow mesh together into a choir. Whatever the egg song is, it’s something that hens experience together.
They do most things together so this isn’t much of a surprise. When one hen goes to the feeder, they all crowd around it. When one hen takes a dust bath, they all want to take a dust bath using the same spot. When one hen drinks, the others take a sip of water. Or at least they act like they’re drinking. One 1996 study found that if chickens see a companion drinking, they’ll go through the motions of drinking as well—dipping their heads into the water and seeming to swallow—but without increasing their water consumption. It’s probably a survival tactic of one kind or another. By staying in groups an individual hen is less likely to be attacked from a predator but also by the group itself. Standing out is not a good thing if you are a chicken. Chickens are the original mean girls.
Because chickens copy their flockmates’ behavior, it means that bad habits can quickly spread throughout the coop. If a few high-in-the-pecking-order hens start bullying a lower ranked hen, the rest of the flock will join in turning the poor girl into a pariah. If one chicken discovers that they love cracking open and eating freshly laid eggs rather than leaving them for us humans to steal, the behavior often spreads. (It’s why people often remove “egg eaters” from their flocks by rehoming or…other methods.) So far I’ve avoided these behaviors in my flock. This is not to say my chickens don’t copy each other.
Earlier this month, I called for the chickens to come in and they all came running except for Scully, my year-old Porcelain D’uccle Bantam. I looked all over the yard. I’d seen her by the gazebo and checked there first. I rustled branches and got out the flashlight to peer underneath it. I walked around the yard calling for her. No luck. I’d wanted to put the chickens inside but it wasn’t going to happen until I rounded up the rogue flock member. An hour later, she appeared like magic. She happily walked over to me—a picture of innocence—as though she’d never even heard me calling.
In the wild, hens pick a secluded place to lay a “clutch” of eggs, enough of them that they can hatch out a reasonable brood of fluffy chicks after 21 days. Often hens will share nests, laying eggs in the same place and then taking turns incubating the eggs until they hatch. It’s safer this way and each mother to be gets a break before and after the chicks come. (This instinct is why no matter how many nest boxes a coop has, hens always want to share one.) Over the centuries humans and chickens have lived together, we’ve bred the instinct for “broodiness” out of most chickens. A broody hen is an angry pancake of a chicken who stays in the nest box all day, guarding her eggs like a troll and hissing at anyone who dares to come near her. She is a hen overwhelmed by motherhood. She also stops laying eggs until she’s finished raising her chicks; this was a source of frustration for farmers who wanted their hens to lay as often as possible. Today production breeds have had the gene for mothering bred right out of them. But it remains in a few breeds: Cochins and small bantam chickens are all notorious for their broodiness. And spring, of course, is the beginning of broody season for hens.
About a week after her first disappearing act, I was trying to put Scully away again. This time she refused to leave an area along the fence and wouldn’t stop chattering away about something. It made me curious. The area was just a few feet away from the gazebo. Instead of trying to get her to follow me, I sat down to watch her. She wandered up to a spot where the privacy screen had fallen over, making a little tent that was just the right size for a chicken to squeeze into. Inside were four eggs. I’d been six inches from this spot, probably while she was sitting on top of the eggs, but hadn’t found her. I couldn’t help but be impressed. No one can beat a chicken at hide and seek but it’s still fun to play the game.
Scully led me to a small clutch (it’s still early spring after all) but in the past I’ve stumbled onto nests in the yard with as many as twelve eggs. Often they’re in areas surprisingly close to where I spend a lot of time in the yard but hidden so well that the only way I ever find them is when one of the chickens gives her position away. I can’t help but wonder if I only catch them because they want me to.
This time, like all the others, the majority of eggs were the small creamy ones laid by bantams but there were also large eggs from the other chickens—the same breeds that supposedly had motherhood bred out of them. They weren’t overwhelmed by the urge to hatch chicks anymore but some part of them couldn’t resist the appeal of laying in a secret nest. Something else that’s funny about it is that while the bantams might lay all their eggs outside of their human-designated nest in the coop, the bigger chickens go back and forth.
Maybe they’re simply ambivalent about where to put their nests but, if not, it’s a brilliant strategic choice. As long as there are some eggs in the nest, I can never be sure whether some hens have slowed their laying or if they’re hiding eggs somewhere. I don’t really care how many eggs we get from them and it’s entertaining to be kept on my toes like this: a human mind paired against a chicken’s. I’m not ashamed to say that so far the chickens are winning.
I think about this more than I should. I never completely know what they’re up to or why they make the choices they do but I wonder about it constantly. In the winter the chickens are quiet and well-behaved. It’s when they’re the closest to the dumb animals most people assume chickens to be. But spring brings an explosion of mischief along with the sunshine and flowers. I see them do things like chasing squirrels and crows out of the yard or expertly hiding eggs or sunbathing as decadently as a rich girl on a yacht. They’re more talkative. They fly more often. Spring brings out a part of them that’ still wild even though it’s been cloaked in domesticity. They’ve become almost overwhelming in their chickenness.
News from the Coop
The chickens are about to have some new neighbors. On April 10 I’m filling up two hives with honeybees! I got the official date and was reminded profusely in the email about picking them up that if I don’t have a truck or a trunk that’s totally separate from the car I have to bring protective equipment with me or else sign a liability waiver so I don’t sue when bees get loose in my car and cause an accident. So far the plan is to put the nuc boxes (a colony of bees who have already started making comb and brood) inside mesh laundry bags, wear a lot of protective equipment, and keep the windows cracked.
I’ve been planning this for months but it suddenly feels all too real! The chickens usually don’t care too much about bees and plenty of people keep both so hopefully they’ll get along okay.
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-Tove
Thanks for another venture to the world of the back yard ... a world of unseen activity. And I’m looking forward to the after report on locking oneself in a car with bees!! Good luck!