Chickens

For the past several days I have been caring for friends' chickens. I wasn't part of arranging for this but due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that I am the early riser in the family, I was the one who got the task by default.

I have had very little to do with chickens other than cooking and eating, so I had no idea what to expect. I have had experiences with ducks and geese and they are on the ornery side, so my apprehension was up. The job was to check them in the morning, open up their house and let them out into their pen and change the food and water, and of course pick up the eggs. If it had been longer I am sure that it would have involved more cleaning and shoveling but this was only a few days.

I have to admit I started this with a little of an attitude. A little miffed that the job was falling on me when I had nothing to do with volunteering and also the good grief attitude of these stupid creatures that are going to peck me and constantly try to get out of the pen.

We started the task with the nighttime job and the chickens needed to be herded into their house before it could be closed. They were all over the place and would go inside. The next morning I went over shortly after dawn and heard the clucking from inside. I opened the hatch and one by one they marched out and clustered around me. Give me Space!, I was thinking. I opened up the pen and there were no eggs. Oh well, It seemed odd but then what do I know about chickens. So I filled the food and changed the water and went on my way.

The topic of chicken sitting (try saying that several times fast) came up at work. Not an normal topic but I shared it as the reason I couldn't run in the morning and I mentioned that there were no eggs. Someone who knew something about chickens said, "they don't know you, perhaps don't like you and are scared". Huh! Like me? Know me?

So I pondered on this through out the day. When at dusk I arrive to get the chickens ready for the night I started to talk to them and moved in quieter moves and the easily went into the house and I could close it up. The next morning we did the same routine only I'd gotten smarter than the day before and scattered some food in the pen to occupy them while I tidied things up. They clucked and cooed and there was one egg. As I slowed down I found that my attitude changed.

That night I arrived and they were already in their house ready for the night and I just said my hellos and goodbyes and closed up the house. I could see one of them was on the roost and the others were softly clucking on their nests.

I repeated this each day and they seemed to greet me each morning. Getting the eggs out of the nests no longer required me poking under the sitting chicken as she seemed to know what I was up to and flew out into the pen. Not only did I come to enjoy my short visits with the chickens but the number of eggs increased each day.

These are very basic creatures that need to be fed and given water and be protected from predators and not much more. Of course I know that there is the shoveling and cleaning that I wasn't part of, but that seems pretty typical when you have any animals.

In return for this they gave eggs and had this very relaxing clucking sound that made the beginning and end of the day pleasant. As usual connecting with most anything in nature slows me down and that is usually good and what I need more than I think.

With the friends coming back I have to say I am going to miss not taking care of the chickens. Strangely (or not) I learned something from them.