Chicken Limericks

The folks at The Annals of Improbable Research sure do know how to combine science and silliness. It turns out that some real research was done on chicken roosting behavior – and so it is the topic of Improbable’s monthly limerick contest. Here is a sample:

INVESTIGATOR HERKY GOTTFRIED:

A chicken that wants to get plump
Will often be ready to jump
But one that’s well fed
Will not be misled –
It clucks but just sits on its rump.

For more see their Oct. 20 blog.

Are you inspired? Send me your chicken poetry! You just might see it posted here on the Hen Blog.

Fried Food

I’m back from a conference in Dallas, with experiences enough to fill several blogs. Today’s blog will be about the food at the Texas State Fair, where the corn dog has been elevated to an art and where vendors vie to create the next best fried food. I was so overwhelmed by the fried food choices that I made a list. Here is a partial recap:

fried banana, fried pork chop on a stick, fried cheese, fried chicken, fried candy, fried peach cobbler, fried Coke, fried latte, fried cheesecake, fried ribs, and fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I confess to avoiding all of the fried food. I had a very good bowl of beans with a side of cornbread and a classic, homemade sweet potato pie.

Unfortunately, it was beef day in the livestock barns and I missed the poultry show.  BUT the midway had a booth where every prize was a toy chicken! I won a chicken key chain.

Candy's Egg

Here’s early proof that there is an Easter Bunny!

The real Easter Bunny

For the next few days I’ll be away at a conference. One of the seminars I’m going to is a taste-test between grass-fed and corn-fed beef. I’ll tell you what I think when I’m back next week.

News from the Rabbit Hutch

This morning I found an egg in Candy’s hutch. I’m sure it’s not hers. Whoever laid it sometime yesterday made a nice nest – the egg was securely at the bottom of a cozy hay bowl. I’m hoping that one of you HenCam viewers saw which hen did this. Perhaps Alma? Amazingly enough, Candy, inquisitive rabbit that she is, didn’t break the egg.

My fourteen year old son has to catch the school bus at 6:35 am (!) He leaves in the dreary half-dark. Yesterday, walking down the driveway in a drizzle, he heard loud banging and ringing. As you can imagine, he was startled. But then, he realized that it was Candy, in her hutch, playing with her toy.

Yes, rabbits, even rabbits that live outdoors and stay busy teasing chickens, like toys. I buy parrot toys – the ones with rawhide and wooden blocks – with a bell on the end. These are very safe, as they are made to withstand a parrot’s beak. It gives Candy something to chew on, and, as Daniel found out yesterday, something to make a racket with. Rabbits, despite their quiet reputation, like that.

Ig Nobels

The Ig Nobel Award Ceremony is like Monty Python for scientists. Crazy, exuberant, and dare I say, intelligent, fun. Go see their Web site for a description of the festivities (in the near future they’ll update their site with a video.) It’s hard for me to pick a high point. The Chicken vs. Egg Opera was hysterical. A mother hen sung to her petulant, teenage-sounding, complaining egg. The words were set to music from Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro.” My favorite line was mama hen singing, “Your simpering seems human, Yet you are just albumin.” Maybe it’s funnier in person?