New Chickens

It all began with a phone call from my dear friend Julia. “I just caught the Mother hen who hatched her chicks out in the meadow. I have six chicks for you,” Julia exclaimed. She had been pestering me for a while to get chickens saying, “They make your garden come alive and are great fun to watch. The eggs are delicious and have bright yellow-orange yolks. You will never want to buy store eggs again.” I was slow to respond to her prodding as I knew nothing about animals or chickens. “I will help you get started and you can call me any time with questions.,” she said. Having a chicken mentor sounded wonderful!
Julia helped my husband and I design a small portable chicken house with roosts and room for two laying boxes. It had side windows covered with metal hardware cloth for ventilation and an opening with a door for a ramp that could be raised and closed at night to keep the chickens safe from predators. Handles like a wheelbarrow and wheels on the front made it easy to move around the yard. To make a pen, I bought some four foot high chicken wire and metal posts. It was fast to set up and could also be taken down and moved it to a new spot every couple of days.
I was all ready for the chicks. Julia brought the chirping chicks in a box and we put them in the pen where they ran around exploring, eating and drinking water. At four weeks old, they had just replaced their baby down with feathers, but still had a lot of growing to do. Julia explained, “baby chicks make soft-cooing sounds when they are safe and well fed, and high-pitched shrill sounds when the are cold, hungry or frightened.”
As dusk arrived, the chicks were confused about going into their new home as they had never seen it before. They all flew onto top of the little house and sat on the ridge to roost. I put my hands gently around each and moved them inside the house on the roosts. Julia said. “After a night in the new house, they will know tomorrow where to roost.” I closed the door to keep them safe.
In the morning I opened the door and they eagerly ran out, heading straight past the food dish to scratch in the mulch. I had placed their pen in the garden so there were kale plants growing and the soil was covered with a layer of mulch made of hay and old leaves from last fall.
With their strong feet, the chicks scattered the mulch and scratched the ground furiously looking for bugs, worms and all sorts of delicious treats. Stopping occasionally, they would jump up to bite off a piece of kale. This was my first lesson, seeing what chicks wanted to eat when they had a choice. I had thought they just ate ground up or whole gains and seeds, but this was because in a confined area or inside a poultry barn, they never have access to any other foods. In a natural setting the seeds of plants and grasses they would eat are smaller, and not like the huge farmed varieties. It was also surprising how many different kinds of plants and fruits they ate. I could understand the yellow-orange yolks came from eating this wide variety of foods.
The chicks grew quickly and began to mature. One day the morning silence was broken with a funny sound. Two chicks were roosters and they were learning to crow. I laughed every time I heard them practice. It took a couple of weeks of practice before they had a strong, loud crow. The roosters, who were larger, grew a large head comb and large waddles under their chin. The other four chicks, who I realized were hens, were smaller and had small head combs.
It began slowly, but I could see as the chickens matured the dynamic of the flock changed. Mr. Rooster made a special call and pecked the ground when he found a tasty treat, and all the hens would run over to see what he had found. He was a cleaver rooster and at times he made his call, but had no special treats. The hens were smart and caught on to his trick, so he then had to work harder to find treats and woo his hens.