Oh, Those Tricky Chicks

Just when you think you know your chickens, they go ahead and surprise you. I mean, you'd think a creature with the brainpower of the average root vegetable would be predictable. But no. You just never know what those crazy birds will do next.

Let us take--for a completely random example, as if you didn't see this narcissistic turn coming--MY chickens, for instance. I thought I knew them. I thought they were disdainful of any additions to their store-bought chicken feed, for one thing. I have tried at various times to give them half-frozen greens from the garden, stale bread, apple peelings . . . all to no avail. They turned their stupid beaks up at this nice fresh food and went on eating their artificial feed. Even though lots of OTHER people swear by giving their chickens all the scraps and old produce hanging around and claim their chickens love it. It really made me wonder what was wrong with MY chickens. Do I have the chicken equivalent of a picky toddler who refuses to consume anything other than pasta? Are they retarded in some way (other than the retardation of your average chicken, I mean, which is pretty substantial)?

Then, faced with about half a dozen starting-to-rot apples, I decided on a whim to cut one up and throw it in the chicken coop on Tuesday. By yesterday morning, it was completely gone. Oh. I don't know WHY they changed their tiny little minds, but they ate the apple, so that's something.

And another thing about those chickens. I thought it was understood that they were done laying eggs for the winter. Everyone says chickens don't lay in the winter unless they are exposed to artificial light. Everyone says chickens go through natural cycles with the sun and I shouldn't be expecting eggs until the days get longer.

Everyone didn't count on Poppy, that crazy chook*. You will recall, perhaps, that Poppy surprised me last year by laying her very first eggs around this time. Which is also the time, coincidentally, of the LEAST daylight in the whole year. Poppy, rebel that she is, doesn't seem to care about the conventional chicken wisdom. Yesterday, the same day I discovered that the chickens have spontaneously decided to eat apple pieces, I also decided to check the nesting box for the first time in a few days, just in case. I found two eggs in the nesting box. These are the first eggs I have found since this one over a month ago.

Now, I know it was Poppy because I only have two hens and they lay different colored eggs. Poppy's are green and Penny's are brown. Makes it easy to know who's producing and who's letting the team down. But if it hadn't been for the color, I would have thought they were Penny's. Because Poppy has never laid her eggs in the nesting box we built for the purpose (see, she really is a rebel). On TOP of the nesting box, sure. All over the floor of the coop, all the time. But IN the nesting box? No. And yet, there they were. Two green eggs sitting in the nesting box. Maybe she wanted to pay me back for the apple.

Or maybe she's just a chicken and therefore subject to no reasoning capabilities whatsoever. I'm going with that one.

* "Chook" is an Australian word for chicken. I think it's really fun to say and write. Try to work it into a conversation today.