One of the many reasons that chickens seem so other to us is that their eyes are so different than ours. We’re used to reading emotion in eyes – squinting from puzzlement, tears from sadness, eyes open from surprise. Physically, birds can’t do those things.

 

Their eyeballs are mostly stationary. When we glance at something we can swivel our eyeballs. A hen can’t, instead she moves her head. Like birds, we have two fleshy eyelids, but we close our eyes by dropping the lower lids down. The hen does the reverse – she raises her lower lids to close her eyes. The hen’s blink is very rapid and you’ll rarely see it, though you might catch it when she’s about to doze, or when she’s preening.

 

 

A chicken has something that we don’t have – a nictitating membrane. This functions to clean and lubricate the eye’s surface. It slides horizontally over the eye, moving from the inside corner across the lens. Here is Beatrix in the nesting box.

 

 

In the time it took to snap this photo, the nictitating membrane swept over her eye

 

 

 

and disappeared again.

 

 

How hens see is for another post. I’m working on it.

 

In the meanwhile, you might want to read about goat eyes and eyesight here.

In my home library, I have a small volume, The Biggle Poultry Book. It was first published in 1895, but there is much wisdom in it for today’s chicken keeper. In the chapter, The Village Hennery (how wonderful is that phrase!) Mr. Biggle states, When confined in small yards they become unhealthy and unproductive.

I have a collection of these agriculture books from before the era of confinement and antibiotics. They all espouse the value of exercise for hens. My Girls agree.

 

Mr. Biggle discusses the differences in the energy level and roaming needs of the various breeds. Active breeds require higher fences. How true! The other day, Misty made her way halfway up the beech tree. She clambered down before I could get a photo. But here is Twiggy, who stayed on the ground because she was so busy eating grass and bugs. It didn’t take long for her crop to fill. That is a satisfied and healthy hen..

Note: I found my copy of the Biggle Book on EBay. A reproduction is available through

, as are original copies.

Spring is here, but we’ll see the effects of the hard winter for months to come. I’m not speaking about my garden, but rather my hens. Confinement, lack of loose dirt to scratch in, and boredom, leads to feather picking. Sometimes this is associated with bullying and aggression, but often it’s not. It’s a social behavior that relieves stress. Some hens, like Jasper, actually encourage the other hens to peck at the feathers at the base of her tail.

 

Owly’s feathers have been broken off by her flock mates.

 

Veronica prefers to have her neck feathers removed. She also lets the feathers near her vent get pecked at.

 

Some hens don’t take part in the pecking party. Misty doesn’t stand still long enough, and for whatever reason, Amber, the Buff Orpington, is as gorgeous as ever.

 

Although the breed of the hen can be a contributing factor to the likelihood of being pecked (or being the offending pecker), that’s not always the case. Of my two Rhode Island Reds, only one has damage, the other doesn’t have a single broken feather.

 

Hens grow new feathers only once a year. First they molt their old feathers (they drop off) and then new ones come in. This happens in the late summer and into the winter. (They stop laying at this time.) So, the roughed-up feathers that my hens now sport will be retained until autumn of next year. I’m going to have a scruffy-looking group.

There’s always the exception to the rule, and in my flock it is Twiggy. Twiggy did not molt with the others. She kept laying. She’s still laying – not daily, but she hasn’t had a break. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that she’s missing the feathers around her vent. No one gets near this fast and busy hen. It’s not feather picking. I think it’s a molt. Unique to her.

If the feather-picking had turned nasty, if skin showed, if blood was drawn, I would have intervened. I would have reevaluated housing and feed. I might have separated out the most avid of the feather-pickers. But, my flock remained peaceful and healthy. I let them be. If I took these birds to poultry shows, their feathering would be totally embarrassing. But, in my backyard, they’re fine. Spring is here. They have better things to do.

A hen eats about 4 ounces of food a day, and lays an egg that weighs 2 ounces. What goes in is what comes out. The quality and the ingredients of the feed matter. Raising your own chickens for eggs means that you know what your hens are eating. Chickens are omnivores and thrive on a varied diet, but they also have exacting nutritional requirements in order to be able to convert what they consume into eggs. I’ve written about what to feed chickens here.

Some people believe that blending their own mixture from individual ingredients guarantees that their hens will be consuming the very best provender possible. After all, they think, it’s not as processed as the commercial pellets. But, for many reasons, homemade chicken feed is problematic. First of all, it’s difficult to keep homemade feed fresh for a small flock because much of what goes into a ration for layers contains oils, and so turns rancid if it is stored for too long or improperly. Also, hens are picky eaters. If fed a mixture of loose grains, the hens will ignore the bits they don’t like – often eating only the carbohydrates and leaving the protein. Or, they’ll gorge on seeds and get too much protein. The homemade ration will separate – the lighter and smallest pieces will fall to the bottom. What your hens eat won’t be balanced. This also happens with commercial blends that are not pelleted, but that are composed of whole and cracked grains – I’ve heard of many ailments that arose from nutritional imbalances that occurred when grain mixes, not pellets, were fed,

My flock is fed commercial laying hen pellets. This ration is nutritionally appropriate, and it’s in a form that isn’t wasteful. It’s easy to purchase and easy to store. I understand that many people, having decided to opt out of the industrial agricultural model, would also like to opt out of buying chicken feed made by Nutrena (Cargill) and Purina (Nestle). I see this as a personal and political choice. Sometimes you don’t have an option – rations made by the big corporations might be all that is available. It might be what you can afford. Your hens will do fine on it. But, those big players aren’t the only ones making chicken feed. There are regional feed mills, like Poulin Grain. I recently asked Poulin if I could come up and tour their plant. I wanted to know exactly what goes into their feed and how it is manufactured.

I arrived on a snowy spring morning. It was a long, but beautiful drive to get there. The mill is in Vermont, on the Canadian border.

 

I met Josh Poulin, the fourth-generation of his family to run the mill (his sister is also involved.) Scott Birch, the Quality Assurance Manager, gave me a tour. It’s a busy place. They make a variety of animal feeds, including dairy rations, rabbit pellets and horse feed. Poulin manufactures 35 tons of laying hen pellets daily. (Which is a small amount when compared to the major feed corporations.) The plant runs around the clock – 24 hours a day.

Feed arrives by rail and truck.

 

It comes in from the Canada and the midwest. Much of it comes in a milled form. There is storage in classic silos.

 

Milled grains are accessed from these bins. There is a fine dust from the light, soft grains, which covers every surface, but the facility is tidy and smells clean. The Poulin feed does contain soybean meal. It is a readily available, digestible, and affordable vegetarian protein.

 

There are conveyor belts everywhere to move grain from one place to another.

 

Some ingredients arrive in bags.

 

Poulin laying hen pellets include three essential oils, obtained from oregano, cinnamon and chili peppers. These help to keep poultry healthy without the use of added antibiotics (as is often seen in industrial agriculture.) They also add a product called Bio-mos which takes on a role similar to probiotics – it reduces bad gut bacteria and increases the good, which in turn promotes feed efficiency and health.

Because grain varies in its nutrient content, what comes in is analyzed in their lab. A computer takes that information and determines exactly how much of which grain goes into the product. The finished feeds are also periodically tested to ensure that the ingredient analysis on the label is accurate.

 

Each ingredient is measured on digital scales. It’s then sent on through the feed-making machinery. This is all controlled at a central computer. When I visited, Jason was orchestrating this complex job. Jason grew up on a local dairy farm. His family still milks cows. He cares about what goes into the feed.

 

The ingredients get mixed in hoppers.

 

Some of the machinery relies on gravity. I climbed many stairs.

 

Once the ingredients are mixed, the feed is pushed at high pressure through the pelleting wheel. This is what it looks like.

 

It is in this machine.

 

The grains are not cooked, but heat is generated as the pellets are forced through the molds. Nutritional value isn’t affected, however starches do gelatinize. There’s a tad of water, vegetable oil and binder added to the mix, but mostly the pellets hold together because they are compressed as they are extruded through the holes.

The pellets then get bagged. (This machine is getting replaced soon.) By the way, the only difference between crumbles and pellets is that the crumbles are broken into small pieces before bagging.

 

The bags are then put onto pallets and moved into the storeroom. There isn’t room to keep it around for long. It’s gone within days, but Poulin guarantees the quality for three months.

 

The whole place was a bit like a

 machine. So many complicated parts to make what seems like a simple product.

 

It might look boring to you, but my hens find it quite appetizing!

 

Note: The ads that you see on my website are put up there by Google Ads. I get a small amount of income from them. I have no control over their content. However, there is a Poulin Grain advertisement on my What to Feed Your Chickens FAQ. Because I feed Poulin laying hen pellets to my flock, I asked them if they’d like to place a banner advertisement on that page. I appreciate both their product and their financial support of what I do here at HenCam. I asked Poulin if I could visit their mill. I did not get paid for this blogpost.