On Chickens

I am one of those peculiar women who always wanted to have a few chickens.  This desire came about when I was quite young, and my parents actually considered getting a few, then, through some decision process I was not a party to, didn’t.  Then there was a flurry of overly urban life, dormitories and apartments and whatnot, and then there was the constant mobility.  Now, I am in my early forties, and my son is in his mid-threes.  And he wanted chickens.  “Science project,” thought I.  “Nice creatures who convert yard pests and weed seeds, both of which we have in plenty, into eggs.”

We have five Buff Orpingtons, a week old, peeping away in his room now.  They’re rather charming little things, feathering up nicely, each with her own personality.  I say “her” with a slight reservation, as though they are supposed to all be hens, one has a decidedly stumpier, rounder tail and a slightly more arrogant personality, and also a much greater confidence in her (his?) wings.  I shall have to consult the feed store about him/her and see if an exchange might be possible.  We do still have neighbors, and also, I wish to try herding these chickens with my dog and do not need a creature with spurs in the equation.

Yes, you read that correctly.  As I research chickens, I am learning a great deal of the Buff Orpington, and have concluded that it is the Golden Retriever of the chicken world.  Inexperienced owner?  Get a Golden – er, Buff Orpington.  Parent wanting an agreeable chicken for the children?  Buff Orpington.  Petting zoo owner wanting to branch out?  Buff Orpingtons.  Crazy lady wanting to herd chickens with her herding dog without inducing mass poultry heart failure?  Er...  How about some nice Buff Orpingtons?

The dog has taken to them immediately, and wants to know why I have not simply dumped the crate of fuzzballs out in the yard so he can boss the birdies.  I feel that a week old is too young for bossing by a German Shepherd.  Instead, I put their box on the floor, or even hold it, and tell him “Away to me.”  He obligingly circles counterclockwise until I tell him “Stop,” and then circles the other way when I tell him “Come by.”  We’re getting our directions that much more solid with no particular trauma to the chicks.  Meanwhile, the big brown eyes plead, “Please, please, please put them on the floor.  Or the grass.  Or anywhere at all.  Let me move this livestock!  If I cannot have sheep, O let me work those fuzzy peeping things!”

Dustin has never realized he is not a Border Collie.  He’ll herd magnolia cones if nothing better presents itself, though he’s expressed grave doubts on the subject of ducks.  They move too easily to interest him, mostly, though the dog-indifferent Muscovies at the park excite him greatly with their utter rocklike stolidity.  He likes to push.  I’m still not sure exactly what a dog does when he pushes on stock, but sometimes I can feel it, too, and I’ve seen Dustin part crowds of people who aren’t even facing him.  Subsonics?  Some sort of pheromone?  Psychic powers?  No idea, but it’s fascinating to watch him lie at the starting post and push sheep back to the fence fifty feet away by choosing to do so.  Also, annoying.  One of the things I want from these chickens is to get “Push” hooked to a command, regardless of what it is that the dog is doing when he does it.  If they choose to flop rather than move, as experienced herders tell me they might, they will provide the perfect opportunity.

Still, at this point the chicks are at the science-project phase of their lives: show the small child what it is to grow from a baby, while he watches what that is in the plant world as well.  It is spring, the time for baby things to be growing up as though we’re watching time-lapse photography films instead of real life.  The tomato seedlings are striving out the window; the bell peppers are following.  When we turn up the garden soil, we find small earthworms who will soon become huge on the manure and scraps of the compost pile, though I hope the non-regional mango and banana peels do not give them tummyaches.  I’m trying to make a quiet lesson of our worm safaris and garden work, though the immediate advantage is not academic, but agricultural; nothing but nothing pulverizes clods of soil like a small boy on a quest to find every worm in the garden.

I measure the quality of our day by the amount of sediment left in the bathtub at the end of it.

Today, perhaps, we will finish turning and cultivating the end of the garden destined for cold-weather crops, the peas and spinach and Brussels sprouts, and plant them.  As they fade, that end will be planted in squashes, whose pests are said to be repelled if you leave a few straggling, woody radishes among them.  We shall see; we always miss a few radishes in the lot, so they may as well do some good.  The other end of the garden, which is being reclaimed after perhaps a decade of disuse (and this, too, is an adventure), is intended for the warmer-weather plants, the tomatoes and corn and peppers and peppers and peppers.  I hope some of the latter survive, as it appears that my pots now hold about ten bell pepper plants and a similar number of hot-pepper-mix results.  However, in past years of planters, the peppers have all blossomed like mad and failed to set fruit, looked spindly for a bit, and then died.  I’m hoping our garden soil serves them better.

I am also hoping that before I get planting on that section, the chicks can be put out there to scratch and peck for a few days.  I have a chicken-tractor setup worked out, and they could cover a block of some sixteen square feet or so for a day, get moved over, and keep me company while I dig up yesterday’s bit and they peck today’s.  I could toss them unearthed grubs and delight their little chicken hearts.  One thing at a time, though.  Today they need their chick crumbles and their newspaper, and they are telling me so.  Peep, peep!

Cross-Posted at my Goodreads blog