This is not a post about junior high school. Though it could be.

It’s the nature of being a chicken that you have to fit yourself into the pecking order. It’s all about who gets to the treats first, who gets the choice roosting spot, and who gets the best pile of dirt to dust-bathe in. There’s understood body language that ranges from mildly threatening head-darts to more aggressive chest bumps. Hens on the bottom will scurry about, and give the top-ranked hens room. Once in awhile, a chicken reasserts her place with a dramatic gesture. On the whole, though, life in a flock should be peaceful. I’ve heard from some that you need a rooster to keep all in line, but I’ve not experienced that. A flock of all hens does fine.

I have two groups of chickens – the ones you see on HenCam and the others in the Big Barn. There’s plenty of space in the barn and I wanted to add the new girls to that flock. However, you’d never know it by watching the daily interactions, but, there are bullies in there.  The bullies are old and creaky, so I thought it’d be safe to add the Polish Crested. It wasn’t. The bullies didn’t strut and intimidate to tell the new girls to mind their place. No, they attacked, pinned them down and pecked their heads. If I hadn’t removed the Polish, they’d be dead.

So, I put the Polish in the neutral space of the goat paddock and let the HenCam chickens in. Yesterday, I put the new hens in the HenCam yard. I sat with them and watched. There was curiosity. There was caution. The Polish immediately recognized that they were bigger than the bantam white hens and asserted their right to get the food first. The little hens darted away. There was no aggression, just communication.

So, why are the girls in the Big Barn bullies? Partly, it has to do with breed. In my experience the barred rocks and the wyandottes are aggressive, especially to hens of other breeds. It’s like they’ve lost the ability to back off. They don’t know when enough is enough and they’ve gotten the message across. Over the years breeders have created beautiful and productive birds, but they don’t often select for temperament. Interestingly, now that the factory farms are being forced to do without cages, the commercial producers are creating a line of docile chickens.

The flock that the Polish hens came from was not a bunch of bullies. They pecked simply because it was too crowded, and those silly coifs on the Polish heads were irresistible. Polish Crested are not exactly known for their chicken sense. They couldn’t get out of the way at their old place, and in the Big Barn, they didn’t know how to handle the attacks of aggressive hens. (I have managed to integrate other chickens in with the bullies. The Golden Comets moved in a couple of months ago –  but the Comets are savvy chickens.)

However, all is fine now. The Polish Crested are doing fine in with the nice HenCam hens. It doesn’t hurt that the Polish have outrageous duct tape headgear. The nice girls are astounded by the fashion plates among them. It gave the new girls instant status.

What to bring to a casual dessert and wine gathering of chicken-keeping neighbors? A cake that requires 9 eggs (well, I used 8 because the Golden Comets are laying jumbos.) I made Chanterelle’s Chocolate Souffle Cake from Luscious Chocolate Desserts by Lori Longbottom. There are only 4 ingredients: bittersweet chocolate, unsalted butter, eggs, and sugar. Quality of ingredients matters.  I like baking with Trader Joe’s 72% Bittersweet Belgian Chocolate. Whenever good butter (that is, organic, or the European-style) is on sale, I buy pounds and freeze. Yes, the flavor of butter comes through. Don’t scrimp!

The other thing that matters when doing a “simple” dessert like this is technique. When a recipe says to beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale, you can’t just take a whisk and combine. Those egg yolks need to go from almost orange in color to a pale lemon. The mixture should double in size. When a recipe asks you to beat the egg whites until a soft peak forms, you have to stop at that moment when the egg whites fall off the whisk like the tippy-top of a soft serve ice cream cone. Too early and the souffle won’t be airy. Too late and the egg whites stiffen and collapse. I learned the difference by purposely ruining whipped egg whites. I wanted to see what happened if I pushed them too far. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

The chocolate and butter gets melted, whisked and then cooled. But, not cooled to where it solidifies or separates. It should pour in a glistening stream. But, too hot and the folded in egg yolks curdle. With experience you’ll develop an eye for when it is right.

Even the baking requires care. If you don’t know what “puffed and jiggly means” you might take the cake out too soon and it will ooze and taste raw, or if baked too long it will be dry and grainy. I ended up leaving my cake in the oven ten minutes longer than the recipe suggested. It was perfect.

Describing all of this would take pages in a cookbook – it’s not usually done. Julia Child did, and that’s why people look at her recipes with both fear and awe. I try to do it in my books, but in a reasonable and edited way.

Don’t be intimidated! If you have hens, you have good eggs, and so you should bake! Find recipes that use ingredients you love. This cake, made with four wonderful ingredients – chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar – requires technique, but even if things go wrong, the end result will still be delicious. It might be better suited for an ice cream parfait, but it’ll still be good. It’s really hard to ruin good chocolate.

And never forget that inspired decoration can hide all sorts of faults. My cake cracked, but who noticed with those adorable hens stenciled on the top?

This weekend I got a call from a chicken keeper in the next town over. She has a very nice backyard set-up: one of those pre-fab coops perfect for 4 or 5 hens, with an attached, fenced run. She keeps the area very clean and the hens even have a tub of sand and DE to dust bathe in. Like many suburban chicken owners, she has a mix of hens, including an Orpington, a gorgeous White Plymouth Rock, and a Rhode Island Red. Usually, hens of different breeds get along fine if they are the same size and age and hers got along quite cheerfully. However, recently she added two more hens, and that made it just that much more crowded. Her two Polish Crested, silly hens with big white top-knots, were the ones to suffer. The other hens weren’t trying to kill them (as can happen – hens sometimes become cannibalistic,) they simply couldn’t resist those fluffy white feathers. The Polish tend to be meek and flighty. Soon, they were bald.

Blue Coat is an antiseptic used in these situations. Not only does it prevent infection, but it darkens the skin, making it less of a target for the other hens. Still, this good chicken owner knew that the hens were unhappy, and so they came home with me.

Here is one, looking a bit like a punk star, with her outrageous purple styling. I need names for these two girls. Any ideas for female rockers?

I put the new hens into the big barn. Even with more space, my hens have been pecking at the Polish’s heads. So, during the day, the new girls will be out with the goats to give them a break from the pecking order bullying. They’ve also got new hats.

Duct tape really does fix just about everything. This headgear will deter bloody pecking! By the time the duct tape falls off, new feather quills will be growing underneath. I think the hens like their new fashions.

On Thursday I took one of my “actresses who plays Tillie” (in this case, Coco) for a drive.

It was a long trip – 130 miles each way – but Coco was quite comfortable. Some hens do not like to leave the coop. My Australorps get upset if they are brought into a different section of the barn! Some hens don’t like to leave their friends. I couldn’t possibly take Marge somewhere without her best buddy, Petunia. But, my Bantam White Leghorns have no problem leaving the flock. The three of them all have prima donna attitudes and I think they like the individual, doting attention. Their traveling accommodation is comfortable and bedded with hay, which keeps them secure even around tight corners (not that I speed!)  All of the food is theirs and theirs alone. Besides, they like being handled.

So, Coco settled in and we drove to the Springfield, VT library where Coco was the star of a Chicken Discovery Hour.

Here she is, doing what she does best, sitting calmly in my hand while being admired and stroked by children (the librarians always pet her, too!)

If you would like me and one of my hens to come to your preschool, school or library, email. Coco is up for another trip.

If you don’t see a goat, it might be because…

… he is on top of the camera.