A ‘mother hen’ shares tales about her flock of goofy characters

 By Anna Swartzlander

Three Easter’s ago, I decided to get chicks. I had wanted chickens for a while – not only for the eggs, but also because I have a wild Border Collie mix (Max – short for Maxi Pad Twinkle Toes Swartzlander) that needed a "job." After years of contemplating chicken-hood, I was gifted with a chicken coop for my birthday, so I decided it was time. 

I had no idea what I was in for. 

I started by going online to research hatcheries. Living within city limits, I knew I could not have roosters, so I had to make sure that I only adopted hens. After finding a hatchery that was reputable, I asked my two daughters to pick out a chicken breed. 

Who would have thought that picking out chickens is like online dating – there are a million different types, and you can filter them by characteristics. For instance, there are “meat” chickens and “good egg layers.” There are chickens that are considered “friendly” and those that are more likely to be aggressive or broody (sit on eggs). 

There are blue-egg-layers, green-egg-layers and brown-egg-layers. Some chickens are heartier in cold weather, some in hot weather, and then there are those that are simply “weather resilient.” There are rare chickens that are so sought after, you must reserve them months in advance. There are extremely cheap chickens ($3) and there are chickens that cost over $1,000. There are Polish chickens (ones with top feathers that you can put up in a ponytail to help them see), silkies (birds with silkie feathers that aren’t great in cold conditions because their feathers will freeze) and bantams (smaller chickens) and even chickens considered “funky.”

It was a whole new world. 

After agonizing over which chicken breeds would be best – we selected friendly, good-egg-laying and weather hearty – both of my girls picked out a chick to purchase. However, when I went to reserve our chickens, I found out that they weren’t going hatch at the same time – one lineage wouldn’t be ready for another month. Research shows that purchasing chicks/chickens at the same time is important to prevent the larger chickens from bullying the smaller chicks. 

But my daughters were set on their favorite types. 

So, we ended up purchasing chicks from two different hatcheries – each with a minimum of three chicks per order, so they would keep each other warm during UPS transport. Then, we decided we also needed some Polish chickens – because at this point, why not? In total, we ordered nine chickens. (I figured some would perish during transport, or soon after, so we might as well purchase a few extra.)

Then, there was the waiting. It was a mild March – up until the day that the chicks were to be transported – and then, of course, it turned into blizzard-like conditions and extremely low temperatures. I was like a nervous nine-month-pregnant mother during the day of their arrival. I must have spoken to the post office half a dozen times before they actually arrived. (As if the post office doesn’t know what it’s doing – it’s been transporting chickens via mail since 1918!) They arrived in small ventilated cardboard boxes, similar to McDonald’s happy meal boxes, three day-old chicks per container. 

I rushed them home, where I had a children’s playpen waiting for them to live in until they were “feathered” and ready to go outside, complete with a hanging heat lamp above to keep them warm. As I opened the boxes, one by one, I found all the chicks to be healthy. One hatchery even sent an extra “neighborhood” chicken, so we ended up with 10 instead of nine. All were alive. All were healthy. All would make it through their first year of life. 

They were adorable as chicks. My daughters named them all, we held them daily and watched them grow, month by month. It was outright entertainment. There is no need for electronics when you have 10 chicks to watch. We spent hours just gazing at them. We made them “chick houses” out of carboard boxes. We watched them nod off, at the drop of a dime, like little old men. We watched their chick fur turn into soft, beautiful feathers. We watched them learn to use those feathers, until one day, they could fly up to the top of the playset – ready for escape.

By early summer, they were feathered and gangly and defiant and ready to move to the outside coop. I had ordered a 6 x 10 dog run and had used hard-ware cloth to wrap the entire run – including the bottom – to keep out predators. I had purchased an additional (larger) coop, since the one I was gifted was technically supposed to house only three or four chickens. However, they all piled into the smaller coop – and to this day, they only use the smaller coop, sometimes perching on top if space is limited within. 

Then, we introduced them to our dog, Max. At first, Max was overly curious, so we kept him on the leash, slowly and carefully getting him closer and closer to the teenage chicks. At first, he snarled a bit, but pretty quickly he became calmer around them, until he could lay outside – with the chickens all around him - in reach of his paw or mouth – and simply ignore them. 

Today, Max and chickens co-exist (mostly) happily, like family. And the chickens seemed to calm down our dog, as he no longer has been eating holes in his forearm as he did prior to the chickens. 

However, there have been problems. Chickens are mostly low-key pets, just needing water, chicken feed and space to rove. My chicken’s roam free (free range) all day long and stumble to their coop at night. 

However, there are the escape artists – one chicken can flap herself up to the roof of our house and routinely perches herself on top of the dog run to sleep. 

There are medical concerns, such as bumblefoot (a foot infection one chicken suffered from), and two other awful maladies we’ve thus far avoided: lash eggs (a staph infection) and scaly leg mites. 

They love “dirt baths” and will rip up patches of lawn to roll around in fresh dirt. 

They invaded my raspberry patch, and they poop EVERYWHERE. 

And sadly, we have lost two to predators, one about a year ago, and one just earlier this summer. Each time, I cry and ask myself why in the heck I got 10. 

But they are hilarious to watch. They each have their own personality:

• There is Buckeye, the red hen, who acts tough and comes charging anytime you open the back door. 
• There is Mrs. B, who likes to get her beak into whatever you are doing, and waddles around because she is quite robust, with very short yellow legs. 
• There is Dusky, who perched on the ledge outside the bathroom window for weeks after there was a murder in the coop. 
• There was Dawn – who was Dusky’s twin, but sweeter – who had extremely bad luck, coming down with Bumblefoot and subsequently being eaten by a predator. 
• There is Snappers, a beautiful grey hen, who thinks she is a queen and who loves to sit on eggs and be petted. 
• There is Skye, a small, dove-like white hen who is stand-offish and does not take any sass from the larger birds. 
• There is Campbell, an aloof, gold-laced Polish hen (this is the one who can flap her way to the roof and sleeps on top of the coop, like Snoopy). 
• There is Progresso – my absolute favorite – who is a black and white Polish hen, never quite seems to know what’s going on and has been found laying on eggs under the raspberry.  
• There is Jigwin, who is a beautiful black and white speckled bird, who walks around with an attitude of royalty and is nearly impossible to catch.
• Finally, there was Alfredo, a little frizzle hen who went by multiple names, including Frizzy and Ms. Frizzle, unfortunately beheaded by what I assume was a raccoon earlier this year. 

Beyond loving this flock of goofy characters, we also get fresh eggs by the dozens every week, many of which we share with neighbors for putting up with our shenanigans. 

Truth is, I guess I’ve always been drawn to farming and find it fascinating. I have investigated getting a miniature milking cow as well, but apparently, despite their name, they are still 500+ pounds and eat 50 pounds of hay daily. I have also played around with getting a pig, but my daughters have told me “No.”

Ultimately, I love farming chickens in my urban abode. However, I can’t say that I will be replacing them when they are gone. Nurturing 10 chickens has been enough experience for this mother hen.