Chickens

The pecking order, broody hens, eggs, compost and cocks. Some notes after a few seasons of interacting with our flock.

We employ a flock of dinosaurs on our farm. After three years of working with these little raptors just about every day, I’m convinced they’re not relatives, they are dinosaurs. Have you ever looked at one up close in their fiery eyes, sensed the strength of their feathered wings in your hands, touched their snake boot legs, felt the blood pulse of their combs atop their heads, heard the screech of a brooding hen? Until about three years ago, I hadn’t. Nor had I given much thought to where the bleach white eggs and plastic wrapped meat from the supermarket came from. Observing and interacting with our chickens, I’ve come to greatly respect and appreciate the work they do as well as the ample entertainment they provide. 

Our chickens work from the day they are born, from sunup to sundown, every day of the year, even on Christmas. As their employer, I have no fear of unionization, for they seem to enjoy every minute of it. We provide the right conditions and they give us eggs, meat, amusement, and best of all, create a rich compost that fuels the garden. In fact, our entire little farming enterprise would suffer greatly without our flock.

Put simply, we bring wheelbarrows of organic materials (leaves, grass, woodchips, manure, etc.) that landscapers, gardeners, and nearby restaurants are happy to get rid of, and wheel it all into the chicken run. Most people look at these materials as waste. I see energy in the form of stored sunlight that just needs a little direction. The chickens go to work immediately, scratching away, talons shredding the materials to smaller pieces. As they go, they deposit steaming droppings of a near perfect mix of nutrients that plants need to thrive. The flock of fifty hens can flatten a pile of leaves as tall as a man in about a day. Once there is no longer a pile, it becomes harder for them to find food since they can’t work with gravity to kick the pile down. That’s where I come in. Every morning, the chickens pause from their work to greet me at the fence as I sleepily walk through the small forest to the chicken run. They follow me to the hay fork that hangs on the coop and eagerly anticipate the feast that ensues. As I dig down, throwing the materials into a mound, hundreds of red wriggler worms and green sprouts are exposed. If there is any doubt of their inner dinosaurs, it is gone at this moment. 

Chickens, like us, are omnivores. They eat just about anything, making them the ideal waste management specialists. The beauty of a compost system is that even the things they don’t eat, like potato peels, eventually get eaten by the chickens through the worms that will happily eat raw potatoes. Worms are the chicken’s favorite food, have everything they need to make delicious and nutrient dense eggs, cost us nothing, and reduce the amount of feed we need to buy. It’s a system that turns what would be thrown out into food. Like all natural systems, waste doesn’t exist, we modern humans invented it. 

Though it rarely happens, if we have sour milk, cream, or yogurt, we give it to the chickens. This is one of their favorite treats and the bowl is emptied within seconds. Hens huddle shoulder to shoulder greedily taking their fill, then tilting their heads back to swallow, beaks dripping white. Some friends left a few yogurt pouches at the farm, the kind for kids that squeeze out and don’t need to be refrigerated. I wasn’t interested and didn’t want to throw them out, so I gave them to the chickens. The bowl sat there untouched for three days until I finally poured it out. This selective choosiness comes from creatures that will happily eat their own dead. I’ve seen on several occasions that animals appear to possess a nutritional wisdom we seem to be lacking in modernity. 

Each day we fill a bucket with a couple scoops of grain: sunflower seeds, wheat, oats, and add water till everything is submerged. The grain soaks overnight and then is thrown on the pile at the start of the run. The chickens eat some of it immediately, especially the sunflower seeds, but much of the grain gets mixed in the pile where it sprouts from the heat generated by composting. In this way the flock eats a diet of bugs and micro greens, rich in nutrients and more easily digestible, even during the winter when no greens are available. As Michael Pollan pointed out in an Omnivore’s Dilemma, “You are what the thing that you eat, eats.” Our scientific age tends towards reductionism. An egg is simply a delivery mechanism for seven grams of protein and a few of fat. The egg from the supermarket might resemble one of our chickens’ eggs, but the two are about as similar as a wolf is to a pug. 

Many community members of our farm save their egg cartoons and eggs shells. We sold at least two-hundred eggs per week for most of the growing season in the last two years, and have never bought egg cartoons. Lucie strips the old labels off the boxes and draws Prokopska Farma on the top. Each box lasts at least four or five trips back and forth to the farm. When the paper begins to tear, we just throw it in with the chickens. The eggshells are crushed and fed back to the flock where they use the calcium from the shells to make new ones. 

Small mountains of materials flow slightly downhill, rapidly converting from something identifiable, like leaves or a rotting pumpkin, into a dark, earthy soil. Alchemists of the Middle Ages tried endlessly to turn base metals into gold. What they lacked were the right materials. The black gold, now compost, arrives at the second gate in the run where its journey is just beginning. We then wheel it into the garden and tuck it into beds where it becomes zucchinis, carrots, and potatoes–parts of which will end right back in the chicken yard. 

This process of making compost can take anywhere from one to three months depending on the number of chickens, outdoor temperature, rainfall, base materials, how often we turn it, and an infinite variety of other factors. I’ve learned that making good compost is much more of an art than a science. When I tried to explain this to an engineer friend of mine, he got frustrated, “I need numbers, proportions, ratios!” All you really need is a nose, though, eyes help too. If a pile of compost smells bad, add more carbon: wood chips, leaves, cardboard, straw, saw dust, charcoal. If it smells fine but doesn’t seem to be doing much, add more nitrogen: fresh grass, manure, kitchen scraps. Before we started growing anything, Lucie and I started a compost pile with three free pallets nailed together. What followed was an education that can’t be bought at the best universities in the world. 

That’s not to say science can’t help make some sense as to what’s going on. I wrote a master’s thesis on composting with charcoal, or biochar. It doesn’t compare to sticking your hand in a large pile of manure or fresh cut grass and not being able to hold it there for more than a few seconds due to the heat. That’s what untold numbers of tiny creatures feasting feels like, all in a process that blurs the lines between life and death. We’re not separate from this process. We don’t come into this world, we come out of it; and we’ll go back into it. Perhaps if the biblical language was instead, “soil to soil,” we would better understand as a culture, the life flow of energy that we now deem waste. “Dust and ashes” sounds way too much like a bad Kansas song. 

“So, how do eggs work? Do you need a rooster?” This is a question we get a lot. Before a few years ago, I had no idea either. How is it that we must memorize every state capital, but don’t know a damn thing about eggs, or these animals that most people eat every day? This question often reminds me of a line in Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac, “Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth?” 

Modern chickens are descendants of a jungle fowl from southeast Asia. They have been bred over several thousand years to lay eggs; high-production breeds today can yield 250-330 eggs per year. During the growing season, they make an egg just about every day. This slows down quite a bit during the winter and while they’re molting, or changing feathers in the late fall. An egg is an ovulation cycle, every day. That egg will never have the potential to become a chick unless you have a rooster. Regardless if there is a rooster or not, when spring comes around, something clicks in some of the hens and they get broody. 

A broody hen is one who is dedicated to sitting on a nest of eggs in the coop, beginning the incubation process. Once she goes broody, she will leave the nest only once each day for no more than a few minutes to eat, drink, and poop. You can pick a broody hen out of the flock easily. She will be making lots of noise, moves fast, and has her tail feathers erect and her neck feathers puffed out like a cobra. The overall vibe is – I’m on a mission, don’t mess with me. 

After taking care of business outside, she runs back to her nest. Throughout the day and night, she regularly rotates her eggs so that they receive even warmth, and the developing chick doesn’t stick to one side. A broody hen does not lay all the eggs she decides to sit on, but make no mistake, the chicks that hatch are her chicks, and she will guard them closely. Once we see that a hen has gone broody, we count the eggs under her which, if done during the day, means getting your hands pecked furiously. The smart flockster checks at night when all chickens enter what can only be described as zombie mode. They’re aware of you, but don’t resist in any way. We usually add eggs so that there are twelve under a broody hen. About half the chicks will be hens and half roosters. The hens join the flock and the cockerels (young roosters) go to a big pot on the wood stove. Last year, we traded a broody hen’s nest for duck eggs. They take a week longer to hatch, so we waited until a certain chicken named “Good Mom” (named so because she reliably raises two batches of chicks each season) went broody and we snuck the duck eggs under her. She stuck out the extra week and raised seven healthy ducks, though she was quite alarmed to see her young head straight for a swim, something that would surely result in drowning if they were chicks. 

We check on the development of the eggs at night by cupping an egg in hand and shining a flashlight on it. You can see if the embryo is developing. If not, we pull that egg. Occasionally the broody hen will push an egg out of her nest after a week or two. She has her own methods of knowing.

We haven’t yet tried to incubate eggs ourselves, but we did raise week-old chicks and two turkeys in a tub in our apartment, a surprise from Lucie one day. Luc would get up in the middle of the night to put boiling water into a glass bottle, wrap it in a towel and put it in with the little birds to keep them warm. Letting a chicken go broody and raise her own allows for a full night’s sleep. 

The relationship between nature and nurture becomes apparent in the chicken yard. Color of plumage, eggs per year, size, etc., are largely determined by the genetics of the breed, though certainly can be affected by conditions and diet. The ability to forage is learned, however. Chickens raised with a mom have a big advantage over those bought from the chicken incubation companies. A broody hen will stay on her nest a day after the first chick hatches to give any unhatched eggs a chance. Within two days from birth, the chicks are at work, scratching away, learning from their mom what to eat. The mom, possessed by her singular desire to raise her chicks, ceaselessly searches for food, ideally worms to feed her young. When she finds something, she lets out a certain panicked chirping sound that sends all the chicks running to her beak, pointed at what she found. After a week or so the chicks become increasingly bolder and are able to last longer without warming themselves under their mother’s plumage. When the mom realizes her chicks aren’t in sight, she’ll sometimes fake the call that she found food just to calm her nerves when she sees them all come running to her. The chicks will stick with their mom, sleeping under her for nearly two months before they start roosting with the other chickens on the perches in the coop. 

We buy four-month-old chickens every spring from a large company. These chickens never had a mom and most likely never had an outdoor space in which they could forage for food. I’ve presented these factory- grown chickens with a worm only to see them afraid and confused by it. They learn fast, though, and after a week they are soon scratching away, eagerly awaiting the hay fork to reveal the delights beneath the surface of the compost. 

Chickens have a strict hierarchical society, which at times can seem brutal. Everyone has their place in the flock and to step out of line is not taken lightly. This is true of roosters and hens alike. Most of the time disputes are solved without much violence. Sometimes there will be a stare down that can last for what seems like minutes. Other times the hens will stand tall, puff up breasts and jump up and down. Usually, one will back down. If there is a standoff, a few pecks or grabbing the comb of the other will quickly sort things out. Chicken moms have an especially hard time. Since they have essentially removed themselves from the flock for three weeks by sitting inside on the nest, when they reemerge with chicks in tow, they’ve lost their spot in the pecking order. Oftentimes a mom’s first moments outside with her chicks involves settling a series of battles to reestablish her position. The same goes for new chickens introduced to the flock. For roosters, the stakes are even higher. A hen to rooster ratio of 20:1 usually means two or more roosters can coexist. No doubt, one is still dominant, but a rooster can only service so many hens in a day. 

I’ve never sat and counted, but I’d wager our rooster, Ingi, performs around fifteen times per day. Good roosters court their hens. Ingi finds something good to eat and will make a call that sends his favorite hens running. He will pick up what he found in his beak, place it in front of the hen and then step backwards, a very clear form of gift-giving. He then gracefully dances around the hen who’s caught his interest. He shuffles sideways, outstretches one wing, pointing it down stiffly and hops on one leg in a circle around his muse. Due to his charm, he is not often rebuffed. When he is, he gives his feathers a shake, puffs out his chest, and struts off to find another suitor, like scenes from a bar on Saturday night. He likes to make everyone aware of his success, dismounting, then singing out a call that is answered by at least three other roosters from other flocks in the valley, one that’s over a half mile away. Farm scenes in movies always show a rooster crowing as the sun rises in the morning. In reality, they start sometimes as early as 3:30 A.M., crowing every other minute in the early morning, and continue till the evening. Peter would’ve had only a minute or two to betray Christ before the cock crowed three times. 

A note on etymology. In Anglo-Saxon England, cock was a male chicken and also the word for penis. Prudish Victorian England changed the name to rooster. A nondescript name because hens also roost at night. Roosting, meaning sleeping suspended above the ground, perched on a branch in the coop. 

Besides making chicks, roosters serve as protectors of the flock. Hens spend most of their time looking for food, beak to the ground. Since Ingi doesn’t have to make an egg daily he occupies himself with keeping peace among the flock and watching the skies. We’ve lost several hens to hawks. No doubt it would’ve been many more without Ingi. He lets out a specific crow that immediately sends the flock running for cover. I look to the sky on these occasions and often catch a glimpse of a hawk flying over the forest, sometimes two, circling so high I have to squint to see them. I once heard a commotion in the chicken yard next door, when I ran through the woods I saw Ingi in warrior mode, squaring off with a falcon that had pinned a hen. The falcon took off, leaving the hen unharmed.

The chickens seem to have an alliance with the wild birds that frequent the yard. Wrens, chickadees and jays hang out in the trees that shade the chicken run, helping themselves to the sunflower seeds scattered about. I don't think the chickens mind the wild birds filching their food because, oftentimes, it is the wild birds that sound the alarm of a predator approaching.

In three years, we’ve never had a predator get into the coop, despite having no solid door. A few weeks before getting our first birds, we met an old villager in the local pub. We told him of our plan to get a flock, and also our dread of having to wake up pre-dawn every morning to let them out and close them back in each evening. The old man took a sip of his beer, and with a lowered voice, like it was some secret ancient knowledge, explained that all we needed to do was hang a curtain of chains in lieu of a door. The chickens learn they can go in and out after a few days, but predators would be fooled that it is a solid fence. I was skeptical, so I turned to the internet to refute or confirm his claim. I found nothing. We decided to give it a try. I fully expected to discover a crime scene each morning the first few months we had our flock. Three years later, we’ve never had a problem. 

Two weeks ago, Ingi experienced a coop d'etat, if you will. He was usurped by his son, Junior, a slightly smaller, but otherwise identical version of Ingi. I found Ingi hiding inside the coop one morning. When I kicked him out, I was amazed to see him chased around by his son. Lucie and I would’ve been sad to see Ingi go for sentimental reasons. But we couldn’t bring ourselves to allow the natural flow of events when Ingi’s son was a, well, cock. There was never any courting from Junior, and he was certainly not the gentleman that his father was. We staged an overthrow of our own one morning and Luc made a great young rooster with paprika on rice. Unfortunately, Ingi, even two weeks later, has not recovered psychologically from this trauma. He still sings, but not often, and it sounds more like a croak than a crow. Most of the day he stands alone, shoulders hunched, head down. Time will tell if he’ll recover his mojo.

Outside of the chicken yard, next to the fence, we have four chairs lined up. Many summer evenings after a long day of farming, we’ll walk up to the brewery, buy two ice cold beers, and perch, legs up, watching the chickens. Lucie and I call this Chicken TV. We watch them work and listen to their gossip as the sun goes down and they slowly march, one by one, up the ramp, through the chain door to their roosts for the night. Anyone seeking nightly entertainment needs only to have a few chickens in the backyard. 

So next time you crack an egg into a pan or take a bite of chicken tender, spare a thought for these unique creatures. Better yet, get a flock of your own. You might be surprised by what you learn.