Chicken Chat

My chicken story started with a simple question asked by a coworker: “Do you know anyone who wants baby chickens?” As a matter of fact, I wanted some chickens! Although I had my heart set on Wyandottes, I couldn’t refuse a few free chicks that needed a home. (I figured I could get my “dottes” later on, once my flock was established.)

So after a quick call to my husband to make sure he was OK with me bringing home four peeping fluff balls and being assured that the chicks were females, I agreed to take them. As it turns out, a relative staying at my coworker’s house had bought the chicks, and when she came home from her vacation, she found the chickens in her bedroom. To top it off, she lived in a community where farm animals weren’t allowed. When I asked what kind of chickens they were, she said: “You know, just the ones you get from a farm-supply store.”

The next day at work, she dropped off the chicks, some pine shavings, a heat lamp, some food and a waterer to me. I peeked in the box, which was labeled “2 pullets, 2 Cornish Rocks,” to see two yellow and two brown, slightly feathered peepers.

Being inexperienced, I was terrified that one would drop dead on the drive home. Halfway there, another realization added to my terror: Cornish … Cornish Hens … Oh, no! Meat birds!

Meating Others

Now, I’m not a vegetarian. I think it’s great that other people are raising free-range chickens to eat, but I didn’t want to try this with my first chicks. After an extensive internet search, my husband and I concluded that it’s indeed not possible to keep Cornish Rocks

as laying hens: They get fat, their legs break, they get blisters, their hearts stop, they die. It would be cruel to try to keep them. So my husband helped me decide to take them to a local farm where our friend is a butcher. There, they could live out there short little lives with 100 other Cornish Rocks.

Separating them was the worst because each one of the Cornish Rocks had bonded to one of the pullets. Luckily, I had figured out they were meat birds before I named them; otherwise, it would have really ripped my heart out. I drove them up to the farm, singing to them and crying just a little. I walked past the fresh pig blood from the morning’s slaughter and left the chicks in the able hands of someone who could raise them without getting attached but who I also knew would respect the lives of the animals.

Back at the house I had the two remaining chicks — now named Gertrude and Helen — in the basement under a heat lamp. Our stairs at the time were not boarded down the back so I used a staple gun to staple down a long swath of fabric to keep our two cats out. I thought it was working until I found our ever-curious orange tabby, Dwight, hanging in the fabric. As I ran to catch him, I heard the staples coming out — pop, pop, pop. I was able to catch him, but the stairs had to be finished — with real boards, not fabric.

The chickens drove the cats crazy, the cats drove the dog nuts, the dog drove us bonkers and no one slept! Determined to get the chickens out of the house as soon as it was warm enough, I started building a simple coop. My husband came along and added features to make it more functional, and we finished this rustic henhouse. It came out great. The only problem? I had started building it right outside the basement door, like right in the walkway. Thankfully, we have a tractor, and with some maneuvering skills, we got it to the front of the house where it now stands.

Expanding Flock

I did finally get my two Wyandottes, Wanita and Thelma Lou. After searching the internet for a hatchery that had some in stock, I happened across a posting on Craigslist for a batch right here in our little state of New Hampshire. I drove two hours each way to get them. The drive was hot but beautiful, and the seller’s two boys showed me everything on their farm: every goat, horse, bunny, chicken, goose, duck, dog, parrot, snake and even a mouse they had just caught. It was homey and heartwarming.

Four more chicks from a hatchery made my flock complete. Two farm-supply specials (still not sure what breed they are), two Wyandottes, two Blue Orphingtons, one lavender Orphington and one Cream Legbar.

Gertrude, initially the most timid and the last of my four older chickens to learn how to roost, has become the ringleader. She is my first to start laying eggs and the first to greet me any time I come out the door or come home from work. She loves selfies and likes to be petted like a dog; Helen is always by her side.

The Wyandottes are very cliquey, like two middle school girls, very pretty but standoffish. The littles — Thespina, Gladius, Henrietta and Lucy — travel in their own little pack. At night, though, when it’s time to roost, they are all one big happy family snuggling together in no particular order.

We have worked on making our house cozy since we starting building it, but no decoration, paint or furniture has made it cozier than the addition of our chickens, which peck at the grass in our front yard. Since we have gotten the chickens, we have also adopted a horse and a donkey. Our little house is now a home, thanks to our eclectic assemblage of animals.

Amy Riedy Clayman and her chickens reside in Bristol, New Hampshire.