When I was a working girl, having to leave our little acreage in a valley the locals call, 'Frog Hollow' to sit at a desk all day, often left me wondering what I'd missed while I was away from our beloved pets and small farm animals.
How often did wild turkeys munch on the acorns under our neighbor's three majestic bur oak trees? Were those whitetail deer helping themselves to an afternoon snack of peas in my garden? If I can't be there, who will protect them all from the occasional coyote predation?
But now that I have most mornings to myself working from home as a free-lancer, sipping coffee from my favorite recliner in our screened sun room as I write, I'm finding all is not quite as peaceful as I imagined.
Instead of admiring hummingbirds doing their half-circled dance at the feeder or delighting in the cheerful song of my vibrant-colored orioles, the din of chickens squabbling and squawking is far more prevalent.
Nearly every day of the week, the clucking begins as a small aggravation, but then evolves into such a clamor that I am unable to carry on a conversation with my husband over the telephone.
The source of the discord? Seemingly unhappy chickens, competing for the same nesting box.
While I've kept a variety of birds for five or six years, I was apparently missing the most active part of the birds' day while I was away at work.
For years, I wrongly believed that as I sat at a desk editing news copy, my "girls" were quietly enjoying their free range of our acreage, chomping pesky insects from my tomato plants and reducing the mosquito population. As a bonus, we figured they were busy at work, providing my husband with the mainstay of his breakfast: eggs laid in those distinctive brown and blue-green colored shells.
Now I know the truth: there's a cacophony of cackles in our yard that can be heard by the nearest neighbor, a quarter-mile away. It begins about 8 a.m. and doesn't subside until around 2 or 3 in the afternoon.
Most days, my investigation into the reason for the squabbling reveals nothing more than anxiety in the coop. Emmylou's intrusion into Big Red's moment of concentration while sitting on the nest – brings pandemonium. An hour later, when one chicken has left, another has resumed her place. But with Li'l Red finally settled into the nest, there's a braying that I fear will bring all the neighbors running. You'd swear a baby lamb had lost its mother. But no, it's just Li'l Red, warding off all intrusions by the likes of Reba, Aretha and Jewel.
We've learned that no matter how many nesting boxes we provide, every chicken prefers the box that someone else has already chosen. I have even tried to lure the girls into another box with tasty treats like clover, but my efforts have been in vain.
Sometimes as I've peeked in the door, I've found as many as THREE chickens in the same nesting box, while two other boxes sit empty.
It's enough to make a farm girl weary.
Surprisingly, the discord amongst my 10 hens does little to disrupt life for my 15 lazy felines. The cats languish about the porch, back deck and yard as if there's never a reason for concern.
That is, until one of the pregnant mamas decided a nesting box in the chicken coop was the perfect accommodation for baby kittens.
Although it seemed a good idea to Mama Cat, imagine her surprise when one of the hens wasn't a bit dissuaded that something else occupied the nesting box one morning. The hen proceeded to share the nest with the cat, Tippy, until the chicken had laid the day's blue-green egg.
The kittens got a new home in a cardboard box on the porch and life in the chicken coop resumed some sense of normalcy.
But a few months later, when it was Lucy's turn to give birth, she too chose a nesting box in an old coop we hadn't been using for several months. Life went on as usual for about a week, until one of our Americaunas discovered the kittens.
At the sound of incessant squawking, I rushed to the chicken coop to find our perpetually broody hen, Clucker, attempting to mother six kittens. She'd managed to position herself over a couple of them as the others huddled nearby in a state of bewilderment. An agitated Lucy stood a foot away from the nesting box wondering what she could do about the situation.
I decided to lift Clucker out of the box. She retaliated with a sharp peck on my wrist. I tried again, and Clucker jabbed me hard enough to leave a slight bruise.
I covered my hand with my shirt sleeve and on the third try, Clucker was removed but not without voicing tremendous displeasure in the process.
Sadly, Clucker had to be locked out of the coop and a small hole was left in the top for the cat to enter and leave.
I learned an important lesson from my hen, Clucker, through that ordeal.
It's difficult enough to dissuade a broody hen from sitting on a clutch of eggs, but hopefully you never have to remove her from baby kittens.
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