That'll do, hen. That'll do.
An ode to a good hen
This is a piece celebrating a chicken named Mayapple, nine years old this May. She just recently went into “retirement” in a friend’s coop. No, not a euphemism. She deserved a nice retirement.
I have a lot of fond memories with this chicken. My wife probably has many more, including reminding me of how, when Mayapple was a chick, she loved to eat in the shadow of my outstretched hand. It probably made the chick feel safe, as if she was eating under a mother’s wing.
One of my favorite stories of Mayapple was from the spring of 2018.
Back then, I was a fundraiser, and I always got thrown into strange situations when trying to secure gifts. I’ve never been put into a dunk tank, but if I’d continued fundraising, that probably would have been in the cards.
One beautiful spring evening, I sat three hours in a borough council meeting waiting my turn to argue for a variance on a property my employer - a small liberal arts college - owned. A donor had given a pretty penny to create a small scale teaching farm, but the borough had ordinances on the books preventing us from drilling a well on the parcel. The meeting came after a full work day, so I came into the borough meeting already fried.
When my turn to speak came, council was apologetic and said I should have stood up and interrupted the proceedings to make my case. I hadn’t. And that may have been the reason they made the variance happen so readily. Sometimes it pays to wait.
I remember driving home in the dark after my twelve hour day. I’d been wearing a suit and nice shoes for the entire experience and took the outfit off to change into my outside clothes. I had to put the hens to bed. My wife was away at a conference so chicken-keeping was entirely on me.
Chicken chores had been a daily exercise for a years at that point. Wake up, often absurdly early in the sunny months. Feed, water, clean as necessary. At night, go out, collect eggs, collect food and water, close up coop to protect against varmints (of which there are many, more on that in a minute.)
The stuff of life. Chickens, in flocks large or small, become part of the “metabolism” of your homestead.
This evening was different. Mayapple, our mother hen, had chicks. Days old, as I recall. It was already dark and I wanted to see how she was getting on, and maybe hear a few adorable peeps in the process of closing them up for the night. But when I got outside, I groaned to myself.
“Oh no…”
Mayapple isn’t like any other chicken we’ve ever had. She is broody. A broody hen will sit eggs, forgoing food and water for long stretches to keep the eggs warm. Some broody hens only are touched by the condition. They sit for a few days and then wander off. Some broody hens sit eggs to full term (around three weeks). Some hens like Mayapple will attempt to brood even when the eggs are removed from underneath her. I suppose it’s a case of when the hormones are more powerful than the facts.
Mayapple proved on many occasions that she’d sit eggs to the point of self-destruction: if the eggs under her (real or imagined) didn’t hatch, she’d continue to sit, barely eating or drinking, holding in her poop, waiting in her trance-like state for the soft peeps of her new chicks. Many times, I’d put her in a crate by herself for a few days to break her out of the trance.
It was easy to know when she was “feeling the changes.” When broody, Mayapple made tending noises (bukbukbukbuk, it sounded like), and if approached on the nest, roared like a dinosaur and sent her feathers out in all directions. Quite a show, but she rarely pecked my hand.
When chicks arrived, Mayapple had immense motherly instinct. You could see her counting them, making sure they were all accounted for. As I recall, she only lost one chick, and that may have been my fault (a gap in the run.) She’s raised about two dozen chicks in her time, distributed to many households. This hen deserved a box of chocolates on Mother’s Day, though she’d probably have liked a bag of meal worms instead.
That evening in 2018, I discovered that Mayapple hadn’t been able to move her chicks up the ramp and into the coop.
The problem with this was that the chicken run - the fenced in area that surrounds the “fortress” of the coop - was not all that secure against any predator that wanted to eat Mayapple and the bite-sized chicks with her. A raccoon would find it easy to burrow under and start snatching chickens. I once had a raccoon grab our fully-grown hen Kiwi out of the coop through a crack in the door that could only have been two or three inches wide. Raccoons, foxes, skunks and possums all live in that mesopredator role in our climate, always prowling, always hunting. All are hungry for small prey, and all love to operate under the cover of darkness.
I had a problem. Moving Mayapple into the coop would be easy. Moving the chicks in the dark, though, wouldn’t be, and I didn’t want to upset Mayapple or hurt any chicks in the process. I remember standing in the darkness for a beat, flashlight in hand, wondering if I should just take my chances and hope they didn’t get eaten overnight.
The idea that came to me was a ludicrous reaction to the situation. But the whole day had been about overdoing things. And I was solely responsible that night for mama and her chicks.
A pair of trees nearby had served as support posts for our nylon tree-hammock for years. I dressed in layers, strung up the hammock, and laid down with my pillow. I would keep vigil all night, I decided.
Sleep didn’t come easily, even though I was exhausted. I can’t remember another time I’ve slept under open sky, and while it’s romantic, it’s also disconcerting. The hammock was great for napping, but not great for an eight hour stretch. Fortunately, it was too early for mosquitoes, and the breeze did rustle spring’s new leaves in a soothing way. Eventually, sleep took me.
I remember waking at the sound of footsteps. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Something small on four legs moved through the grass and leaves at the edge of the woods. Peeking over the edge of the hammock I saw… nothing. It was pitch black, and starlight outlined the contours of the yard in only the faintest way. But whatever stalked the darkness seemed to be coming my way. And, thus, towards Mayapple’s coop as well.
“Hey!” I shouted.
The footsteps stopped. I sat myself up further in the hammock, purposely making some racket as I did so. And that was enough for whatever was out in the dark. The animal took off into the woods.
I laid back down, satisfied. And the next morning, after getting out of the hammock cold and sore, I found Mayapple with her chicks, happy and healthy. I went inside for breakfast.
Everyone has a dog or cat that, despite having other pets, remains your favorite. As my wife and I always said, our hens weren’t pets, they worked for us. But Mayapple became an exception to the rule. That chicken has been a pleasure to keep. A hard worker. A source of joy. And a bird that taught me a few things about parenting. We are getting out of chicken-keeping for a few years (if only to take some well-deserved vacations) but are lucky to have had such a wonderful hen and glad that she has a new home.
That’ll do, hen, that’ll do.
