Life as an Urban Chicken

The daily life of one of my backyard chickens is a pretty good deal. The girls usually wake up around 7:00 or so, along with the sun during these summer days. They pummel down the little ladder and begin their day clucking in their covered run, pecking at the dirt, and pretty much catching up.

Around 7:30 or 8:00, they usually hear me doing something in the house and decide they should make some noise outside. Just a friendly reminder that they are ready and waiting for any/all kitchen scraps I might have from dinner the night before. Sometimes I don’t have any leftovers, but I still hop outside for a few minutes to share fresh lettuce from the garden, from which they are still banned from, or some scratch, a mixture of dried corn and grains. The banning of the chickens can be relived here, in case you missed it. (I am still amazed at how many veggies have popped up without their daily gobbling of my freshly planted seeds…)

Also around this time, the girls start thinking about laying some eggs. I went ahead and rearranged the inside of the hen house to allow for two nesting boxes. Usually you only need one per 4 hens, but I didn’t want them to get antsy waiting for their turn in the egg-laying queue. Unfortunately, they haven’t quite figured out that they can lay in the “other” box. The “other” box is defined as the box without the fake egg in it. I can move the egg from one box to another, but they consistently lay only in the one with the fake egg. Their brains are the size of an acorn, so I guess I shouldn’t expect so much of them. I should just suck it up and get another fake egg.

The rest of the day is usually spent in peace and quiet with some soft clucking, digging into the dirt floor for a nice dust bath, snacking on some pellets. Although they have grown up with each other since birth and the pecking order has been well-established, there is the occasional scuffle. Today was one such morning.

I have this nice little view from my living room window. After the morning routine of throwing in some scratch and making sure they had enough water for the day, I was grabbing my purse inside when I heard a ruckus. I peaked outside and watched Winnie chase poor Hazel around and around the feeder. She pinned her a couple times and proceeded to sit on her. The bullying stopped after a minute or so, but then Pearl felt she needed to make it clear to Winnie that she was the top bully, and maybe Winne shouldn’t get so high and mighty. More chasing around the feeder, Pearl pinning Winnie onto the floor, and it all blew over.

I checked on them this evening, as I made my usual rounds to collect more eggs. They seem to have since made up and all is well in my backyard chicken world.