Maybe you’re wondering why you haven’t heard about our hens for awhile? Well, they peck and scratch, lay eggs, file into their house at night … it’s not the makings of breaking journalism. But these girls will be in for a big surprise soon. They’re going to get a chicken run of their very own!…
It’s the first week of October and something is up with Emily. The hens usually wander around the yard together, pecking and scratching, but Emily is hanging out by herself. And she spends a lot of time sitting on the back step, staring into the sliding-glass patio door, crooning. When we’re outside, she follows us…
If you’ve been following the Hen Diaries, you’ve watched our four sweet little chicks turn into garden-devouring hens. Well, today was a big day for our little flock. Emily laid our first egg! I’ll tell you all the details in the next installment of the Hen Diaries, but for now, look how much these girls…
Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, is a backyard chicken enthusiast. Her article about her poultry-keeping passion, “The It Bird”, appears in this week’s New Yorker. “Chickens seem to be a perfect convergence of the economic, environmental, gastronomic, and emotional matters of the moment,” Orlean writes, “plus, in the past few years, they have…
Sometime in late July, I become smug about chicken keeping. It’s just like everyone said – easy, peasy. Much easier than taking care of our three spoiled cats, and, an absolute breeze compared to chasing after our toddler. Gertrude, Virginia, Charlotte, and Emily get along, they entertain themselves with all their pecking and scratching, and…
My husband’s mom is visiting, and she graciously agrees to watch our one-year-old son while my husband and I get some work done. “You only have three chickens today,” she says when I get home at 6:30. “I haven’t seen the other one since lunch.” The brown hen who’s missing strays from the flock more…