As I’ve learned over the past three years, raising chickens comes with more drama than one might expect. It’s like an ongoing soap opera, with a cast of noisy ladies, each with her own particular beef over something.
I see their accommodations— a well-insulated, 160-square-foot main coop with plenty of natural light and a spacious, four-tiered roost, along with a 100-square-foot exterior run— as pretty deluxe. And this time of year, as the garden starts to wind down, they get plenty of free-ranging time in the yard.
But like an episode of “Real Housewives,” it seems there’s always something up, something that needs complaining about.
As soon as they see me in the yard, the kvetching starts. I’ve learned with experience the difference between the contented clucks of the gals when I toss a few handfuls of scratch grains into the run in the morning, and the longer, more plaintive squawks that, to my ears anyway, sound like general dissatisfaction. It doesn’t matter that they have it way better than any chickens spending their sorry lives in some industrial egg factory.
No matter. The complaint department went into overdrive this past week when I introduced this year’s cohort of young layers to the coop. This past spring, we ordered five Ameraucana’s, an American breed developed in the 1970s and best known for laying blue eggs, which we figured would help us better judge which chickens were paying their way, and which were simply unproductive wards of the feed bag. Our current breeds all lay eggs in varying shades of brown, so it can be pretty tough to tell who is doing the work and who’s riding the coattails.
Our Ameraucanas survived the trauma of growing up in a smaller coop with 15 Cornish Crosses, the ultimate meat chickens that, in just eight weeks, go from cute chicks to hideous 7-pound monsters that do little but consume from one end and discharge from the other. By the time butchering day arrives, you can only feel relief.
The Ameracaunas were spared that part of the deal, but their introduction to the coop has been equally traumatic, and not just for them. This, of course, is not a surprise. Introducing a new group of hens into the sisterhood rarely goes without upsetting the pecking order, but the general disgust shown this time by the old ladies to the young interlopers has been a bit beyond the norm.
As usual, I had tried to introduce the birds on neutral territory, by letting them all free range at the same time, which usually lets them cautiously get to know each other. The older hens, in this case, wanted nothing to do with the younger birds. And the younger birds, who moved about the yard in a tight five-pack, wanted nothing to do with their elders.
The young birds, however, were curious about the accommodations for the laying flock. Their separate coop is certainly adequate, but smaller and plainer than the main coop. On the second time free ranging, the Ameracaunas made their move, hopping up through the open door to the run. They were fascinated by the balsam fir poles that I have erected in various angles within the run, which form a kind of jungle gym that the hens make use of all the time. The young birds took turns going up and down the different poles, clearly impressed. They pecked through the bits of grain on the ground, or oversized zucchinis that I bust open so the hens can pick out the insides.
Eventually it became clear that the Ameracaunas weren’t planning to leave and as dusk arrived, the older hens gathered near the door but none of them would go inside, despite their instinctive need to return to the coop. Yes, chickens really do come home to roost but, in this case, it seemed the chickens came home to protest.
Fortunately, the Ameracaunas decided to make their way into the main coop, which at least allowed the older ladies to enter the run so I could shut things down for the night. But I had to stay and watch the soap opera, because now things were getting interesting. For a while, it appeared the older chickens were going to spend the night in the run as they were clearly reluctant to go anywhere near the young birds. Over several minutes, however, they made their way, one by one, through the little door into the run. I went around to the other side of the coop, to the main door and I watched through the screen as some clearly irritated old hens tried to settle in for the night on their roost. While there’s always a bit of jockeying for position as night settles in, the hens were clearly in a bad mood. The five young birds huddled in one corner of the coop and eventually roosted on top of a food bin located near the door.
It’s been a week now and the older hens seem to have adjusted, but the five Ameracaunas, which have always been skittish, still stay away from the other birds, mostly remaining in their corner with only brief forays for food and water.
I still regularly hear shrieking from the coop, which is usually the preemptive response of one of the young birds whenever one of the older hens comes over for a closer inspection. I’m hoping things get better soon. Winter’s coming after all, and all the chickens will soon be mostly confined to the coop. Hopefully, the drama will be down to a dull roar by then.