The White Leghorn is often overlooked as a hen for our backyard flocks. I think that’s because of all of the horrific images we’ve seen of white chickens crowded into cages in factory production facilities. We don’t want egg machines in our sturdy, old-fashioned flocks. But, the reality is that the hens in those cages are a modern invention with closely guarded genetics. They are not the Leghorns that you purchase from a hatchery. In fact, the Leghorn is an old breed that originated in Italy. In the mid-1800s leghorns transformed chicken farming here in the United States because it had the best food-to-egg conversion, and made egg farming a viable business. The Leghorn was an active forager, heat tolerant, and so was ideal for the new pastured poultry ranches that were springing up in California and elsewhere.

California Chicken Ranch 1911

Today’s Leghorns lay beautiful white eggs almost daily and rarely go broody. I find them to be friendly to people and not aggressive to other hens. Bantam White Leghorns are charming, spry birds full of personality. My first bantam White Leghorn inspired me to write Tille Lays An Egg. If you get a Leghorn, or two, I’m sure they’ll inspire stories of your own.

It should come as no surprise that, what with my fixation on chickens and eggs, that I have a thing for Humpty Dumpty.

However, his story is tragic.

We all know what happens.

And it ends very, very badly.

Eek! Do you see the hand in that smashed egg?

And yet… when Humpty is on that wall he beams eternally optimistic good cheer. How can I resist his charms?

Before there were round hay bales wrapped in white plastic, and before there were rectangular bales held together with twine, there was loose hay. Piles of it. For the fortunate farmer with acres of fields, there was the problem of what to do with the bounty. Not compacted into bales, it didn’t all fit in a barn. Some hay was left in the fields. It was rained and snowed on and there were losses, but the mounds were constructed in a certain way, and most of the hay would remain good through the winter.

As long as the farmer had to pile the hay outside anyway, some of it could be layered onto the chicken houses. It was insulating. It provided fodder for the flock, not to mention, I’m sure, a wealth of bugs to scratch for. Eventually the hay would be fed to the hoofed animals and the chickens would be slaughtered for meat. And then the fields would green up again.

Greetings to all of you with fathers who have held you while standing amidst the chickens, and to those of you who are the men that did the holding. Thank-yous to fathers who have built coops, to those who have bought chicken feed, and to dads who have driven a hundred miles with chickens in the back of the car to go to a 4-H fair. Happy Father’s Day to dads who have never held a hen, but have held a child and crowed “cock-a-doodle-doo” while reading a story. Much appreciation to all dads who have enabled their children, one way or another, to have chickens in their lives.

It was dreary, damp, sweater-weather this morning.

What was needed was a little lamb love.

And goat joy.

It worked! I do believe that the sun is coming out.