People get chickens for all sorts of reasons. Gardeners who like to grow their own food see a backyard flock as an extension of their vegetable patch. Some think that a few chickens will teach their children about responsibility and where their food comes from. Others are serious about cooking with fresh eggs. Some simply think that chickens look fun to have.

We are a nation of pet lovers. We go on about our dogs as if they are children. We sleep nose-to-nose with cats on our pillows. But, very few people who get chickens do it out of love. Which is why, when we realize that we tell stories about our hens, just like we do about our puppies, when our kitchens have chicken motifs, and we have a growing collection of rooster pins,  and wear socks patterned with chicks, and friends greet us with “how are the girls?” (and they don’t mean our children) we are surprised as everyone else.

Yes, we’ve become smitten with our chickens. Head over heels in love. You can admit it. Go ahead.

So, on this Valentine’s day, buy something red for your girls – strawberries, tomatoes, red chard – you know what they like. You don’t even have to say the L word out loud. They know.

I have two dogs. Lily is a rat terrier/border collie mix, and so she is alert, prey-driven, smart, and intense. She is a good farm dog and chases flying hawks out of the sky over our hen houses, keeps the deer out of the garden, and the squirrels off of the grass.

Scooter is a chihuahua mix. He is a lap dog. He is sweet and playful. His job is to keep Lily busy so that she doesn’t drive me crazy. He’s good at that, although lately he’s been asking for more attention from me. So, although he has perfect house manners and is easy to get along with, I’ve decided to do some training with him.

I’ve put off training Scooter – sheer laziness on my part – but it’s time. I like training animals. I believe in manners (kids, adults, animals all need them), and the only way to get a dog to be polite is to train it. Safety is an issue – I want the dog to come when called, stay in the car until given an “ok,” and be gentle when taking treats. And then there are the silly pet tricks. They’re so fun!

But the biggest reason to train your dog (or your chicken, I’ve trained them too) is to communicate more effectively with them. And the best way to do that is by “clicker training.” If you’re not familiar with this, go to my friend, Karen Pryor’s web site. In a nutshell, it’s positive reinforcement, using the same techniques that are used with marine mammals. It’s kind, it’s precise, it’s effective.

Here is a funny training story:

I am training Scooter to stand on a piece of cardboard. Sort of  like getting an actor to go to his mark on stage. While I work with Scooter, I have Lily in a down stay on her mat. I toss her a cookie every once in awhile to reward her for staying put.

Scooter is just learning to go to the cardboard. He tends to take his time, sniff around a bit, and looks at me to see if staring at me with his big liquid brown eyes will get him a cookie without actually doing the work. Lily is watching. Scooter circles the cardboard. Lily has had it. She jumps up, smacks the cardboard with her paw and then goes back to her mat. It is absolutely clear that she is thinking, “there you stupid puppy, just do it!!!”

What’s really impressive about Lily’s outburst is that I’ve never taught her the cardboard trick. She figured it out just by watching me train Scooter!

Here in New England we have five seasons – summer, winter, spring and fall and MUD. Mud season is usually around March, but this year it’s come early. Of course, there’s a chance that we’ll have two mud seasons this year – everything could freeze up again, and then thaw once more.

This is what makes a mud season: snow on the ground, days of rain, temperatures warm enough for the snow to melt, but not enough sun to evaporate any of the puddles of water caught between the frozen ground and the few inches of mud above.

The chickens are happy to have something soft to scratch in, and they’re even out there in the rain. But, I worry about them more now than when the temperatures get well below freezing. It still gets really cold at night, and if they’re damp when they go to roost, they can get chilled and sick. This is the time of year when we lost our silkies and a Polish (that’s the type with the “hat” of feathers.) These breeds just don’t have the feather insulation of the sturdier breeds.

I also keep only clean-legged hens – none with feathers on their legs. I love cochins, but during mud season their leg feathers bring in the muck and get it all over the nesting boxes and eggs.

I know that some people cope by putting down wood chips to get the girls high and semi-dry, but we’ll just muddle through here at Little Pond Farm. (Bad pun, sorry!!)

Candy, by the way, does NOT like mud. There’s still a pile of snow in her yard, and you’ll find here there, sitting on the top, keeping her paws clean and pretending to ignore the hens.

The dogs, of course, love mud season. The dirt smells great! I’ve got a towel by the door and they are trained to let me wipe them off before coming in. Which helps a little.

The weather forecast is for rain the next five days, interspersed with snow showers. I’ve got my polka-dot mud boots by the door.

Stay warm and dry!

No one has come up with a catchy phrase that encompasses the good things about eggs from small flocks of chickens that scratch around outside. “Humanely,” like so many other terms, is open to interpretation. The chickens might not be exactly “free-range”, nor necessarily “organic,” and “local” doesn’t speak to the housing or care. Say “pastured poultry” out loud, and it’s like you have marbles in your mouth.

I came across this 1933 egg carton on Ebay. Nearby Eggs. Don’t you love that? Look at the graphics! The picture says it all. Just don’t bid on it. I want it.

My house sits on two acres; there’s lawn, woods, vegetable garden, one peach tree, some raspberry and blueberry bushes, two chicken coops, and this beautiful water feature. The centerpiece of which is that 17-ton rock, a wonderful hunk of granite that we got when we dynamited out the foundation for our house. The rock has a blasting hole straight through it, and that is where the water flows. In the summer, there are frogs and dragonflies, fish and (yuck) leeches, and so we call it a pond, and our little corner of the world, “Little Pond Farm” – the name being false advertising as we aren’t really a farm.

Anyway, what do you call a place that has two acres, in a town that’s not suburbs and not rural? Are we in the exurbs? And what is a place that has chickens and produces some food but isn’t a working farm?

A dear friend and neighbor, who has lived in this town for 60+ years, and has raised ponies and golden retrievers, calls her place a “farm.” But she has more right to that title – not only does she own forty acres, but broodmares and foals make for a real farm, don’t they? Years ago, she also kept chickens. In 1942, she did what I do now, sold eggs to her neighbors. Back then, she got 35¢ a dozen, which in today’s dollars is $4.45, more than I get today!

Well, whatever you want to call this little slice of land, I’m happy to be here.