Chicken Update

(Click on the picture above for a full image)

I’m beginning to feel like the Hedda Hopper of chickens.

I regret to report that the ceramic eggs were a bust. Belva laid claim to one all by herself and sat on it for a full week. The others hens were simply bothered and bewildered.

My middle son said that it’s no wonder these hens don’t lay.   They have everything they need right at their chicken-finger-tips. Where, he asks, is the motivation to produce? He’s obviously immersed in the corporate world. As opposed to the coop-erate world.

Another friend said he had chickens who laid eggs the size of quarters. It took a dozen to make a decent serving of scrambleds and the cost of the feed was driving him into bankruptcy.

I had not known that my old college roommate raised chickens professionally. (I find out the most interesting things through this little medium.) She had sound advice for my neighbors which I’ve shared with them.

Another friend posed that eternal philosophical question: Which came first? The chicken or the ceramic egg?

In the meantime, it has been determined that these particular chickens have hormonal issues. I share their angst.

The cure-du-jour is to put ice packs….yes, ice packs….in their coop. The psychology of this is confusing to me.

Apparently, in this scenario, the hens sit on the ice packs for a couple of hours which will, quite naturally, cool off their nether regions. This supposedly adjusts their hormonal balance. Then Voila! Egg production.

As an egg producer of sorts….and subsequently a mother…. this would have been anathema to me. But I don’t have feathers. That might have changed everything. There’s clearly a culture here that baffles me.

My Hedda Hopper days may have come to a close as I find that I am unable to get inside their chicken heads for insight. And I sure as heck am not going inside that coop to try to figure it out.

So. They’re on their own.   Not that I’ve been of any assistance anyway.

The good news is that their people….or their “peeps” in chicken-speak….love them anyway.