I know that the other day I said that I wasn’t going to let the hens out to free-range. I’d planted some grape vines. I put down wood chips. It all looked so tidy. But, the girls gazed longingly at the grass. They crowded their pen’s door when they saw me. I had second thoughts about my harsh stance. The flower beds are still bare, with only the green tips of the peonies showing. There is a fence around the raised vegetable beds protecting the seedlings. How much damage could a dozen hens do in an hour?

It turns out, that the answer is a lot. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a flock of young and healthy chickens. The old hens barely scratch the ground, but the Gems are vigorous foragers. Dirt and mulch flew through the air. Greens were eaten. Dust baths were hollowed out of lawn. Big piles of poo were left.

Usually I wouldn’t care if I don’t have a sharp edge around a garden bed, or if the bark mulch isn’t perfectly contained. However, this year, I have been asked to be on a garden tour. I tried to convince the organizers that there are many nicer gardens in town. A landscape architect on their committee came out to look at my property. I pointed out the failings. She gushed about how much she loved it. The garden tour is a benefit for a very wonderful museum. I couldn’t say no. So, on June 1 and June 2 there will about 700 people walking through my backyard. I think they’d like to see something other than dust wallows and shredded plants. The hens will be staying in.

I have ways to keep confined chickens content. There’s the compost pile that is frequently replenished with interesting and delicious refuse. There’s the kitty litter box filled with sand and DE for dust baths. There’s the occasional pumpkin and melon to demolish. In the summer, I have another trick. I put a block of wood in a sunny, hard, packed dry dirt spot in the run.

After a day in one place I turn it over. Underneath is damp ground. Bugs and worms surface!

However, it doesn’t matter how much their pen is like a chicken playground, they’ll continue to want to come out. But I’m not going to let them. I have enough work in the garden as it is. Lucky for them, much of it is weeding, and I’ll be tossing them clods of dirt and dandelions.

Meanwhile, the goats are asking to help.

I don’t think so boys. Why don’t you play on your stumps?

I’ll be posting more information about the Garden Tour soon. It’s open to the public, and tickets do sell out, so I’ll let you know when they go on sale. Do think about taking a drive out here that weekend. It’s worth a trip. The town of Concord has Louisa May Alcott’s house, Walden Pond and Revolutionary War buildings. We’re near Minute Man National Historical Park. My property will be one of eight on the tour. If you do come by, don’t forget to say hello to the Beast. She’s the one animal here that doesn’t wreck havoc. I’m sure she’ll be swimming demurely past the blooming water lilies.

Last week one of the hens tried to kill Buffy. Or, it could have been a couple of hens. I don’t know the culprit(s). All I know is that I found Buffy in a nesting box, and there was blood splattered everywhere. Half of her comb was gone. Day in and day out this has been a stable, peaceful flock. The only obvious sign of a pecking order is that the hens with the most status get the best food first. Once in awhile I’ll see a short chase of four steps, and a peck that misses.The nine hens in the Little Barn range from old to elderly. It’s not worth their energy to strut their stuff. So, that blood, worthy of a television crime show scene, was a surprise. I removed Buffy from the group. All went back as it was, with the hens doddering about and napping in the sun. There were no other attacks, so this wasn’t a case of an usurper trying to assert herself at the top of the compost heap. What happened was specific to Buffy. Something must have triggered the violence.

Buffy has lived a long life and has survived several health issues. She’s a quiet hen that minds her own business. Sometimes aggression is triggered when a hen becomes sick and weak, but Buffy doesn’t seem any slower than normal. Her manure output is the same. She’s eating and drinking fine. However, two weeks ago I noticed that part of her comb was discolored. It looked darker and shriveled. A healthy comb has a lot of blood flowing through it. I thought that perhaps Buffy was having circulation issues. I didn’t think that it was a big deal. But in fact, combs are very big deals to hens – combs are the key visual trait to how they identify each other. To us humans, a thousand brown hens in a commercial flock, all of the same breed, look the same. But to the hens, each one of them is an individual – and they know each other by their heads. Each hen has a unique comb which the other hens recognize. Change the comb and it’s like a new chicken has been inserted into the group.

Despite Buffy’s unique golden plumage, and despite the fact that she has lived with some of these hens for six years, with her comb dark and shrunken, she wasn’t recognized and was attacked as an interloper.

I put Buffy into a spare rabbit hutch, and placed the house inside of the chicken run. Buffy has food, water, shelter and a safe place to heal. The other hens get to know the “new” hen through the hutch’s wire front.

Every day I give Buffy some time in the goats’ pen, where she can scratch, dust bathe and eat grass.

Buffy spends much of her time looking at the other hens through the fence. I’ve never know a chicken to hold a grudge. The other hens aren’t puffing up their chests and challenging her through the fence. Buffy isn’t looking scared. Hopefully, when her comb is healed, I’ll be able to put Buffy back in with the flock.

Buffy is taking it all in stride.

My hens don’t free-range unless I’m outside with them. I keep them safe from coyotes, dogs, and foxes with good fencing. But danger can also come from above. For the last four years a pair of redtail hawks have nested in the woods behind my house. More hawks live across the street. There is netting above the Little Barn run – Candy is quite safe – but the way the Big Barn pen is configured makes hawk netting impossible.

Good Dog Lily chases predators out of the sky (many dogs never look up, but she is hyper-vigilant.) However, Lily is not always outside to protect the girls.

In an effort to protect the hens, I’ve criss-crossed string over the run – hawks don’t risk getting tangled up in it. And I’ve hung CDs, that sparkle erratically in the sun and keep the airborne predators (and pesky sparrows) away.

This winter, while reading “garden porn” – those colorful seed and plant catalogs that always seem to arrive in the mailbox on the dreariest and coldest days of winter – I came across seedless grapes that are suited (so they say) to my area. I had an “a-hah!” moment. What if I planted the grapes along the chicken’s fence? What if they twined up and up, and then across and created a shady, verdant arbor, impenetrable by hawks? And from those vines would hang clusters of delicious grapes that I’d harvest? And the girls would get only the drops. There. That’s the fantasy.

On Sunday I planted three bare root plants that don’t look like they’ll grow at all. One each of Pink Seedless Reliance, Concord Seedless, and Red Seedless Canadice. I watered. I put down mulch.

Gardening takes patience. It’s for those who can envision the long view. Chicken are not good gardeners. As I worked, the girls gathered at the fence, intrigued by the twigs sticking out of the ground. They clucked and paced the fence-line, eager to get into the new bark mulch. Today I’m going to spend time in the vegetable garden planting peas. I was going to let the hens out to free-range while I work. But, what with the way they are eying the grapes, they’ll be staying in.

Nine years of energetic, brilliant, vermin-chasing, loud, alarmist, loving companionship.

(photo by Spencer Webb)

A baker’s dozen of people interested in keeping backyard chickens came to my home this afternoon for the Chicken Keeping Workshop. You never know what the weather will throw at you this time of year in New England, and although it was cold, it didn’t rain and it didn’t snow. So, after listening to me talk about chicken breeds and the chicken life-cycle, behavior, housing and health, (and eating a bunch of cookies) we put on coats and boots and went out to get some real-life experience with the chickens. I promised that I’d show the class lice. After looking at several bottoms and not finding anything but healthy skin and feathers, I finally found a few crawlies on Tina. Next the class watched me muck manure and toured my compost piles. They got to see Buffy’s bloody head (healing nicely, by the way, and she’s quite happy in her private hen house – a spare rabbit hutch.) Then it was time to learn how to hold a chicken.

Just look at these smiling students! They’re ready for flocks of their own.

For those of you who couldn’t come to the workshop, but want to learn how to hold a hen, I’ve a YouTube video here.

The next workshop is April 14. It’s full, but email me and I’ll put your name on the waiting list. If there’s enough interest, I’ll schedule another workshop in early summer.