Great Eggs-pectations
Autumn is beginning to present itself once more here on Long Island, bringing with it evocative sights and scents of seasons gone by. In our home, the beloved season launches the explosion of fall decor- truly my favorite adorning pursuit of the year as velvety pumpkins and garlands of scarlet and amber leaves spill over into every corner of the house; then overflow outside where the scarecrow, attired with his flannel shirt and best overalls keeps watch over the remains of my summer garden.
Fall also leads me to recall that we are headed into our fourth winter with our home-grown chickens. It all just seems like only yesterday…It was at the onset of the Covid pandemic when the entire world was upside down, I got the brilliant idea that we should raise chickens. (I say “we” because I knew I would have to enlist our daughter Ashley to help me pull it off.) Chickens, I presumed, cannot be too expensive to keep. I mean, what do they eat? Grass? Insects? Additionally, we would have the benefit of fresh eggs-people can survive on eggs-and if the economy tanked we could survive on the chickens as a last resort! Well, that was my thinking back a few years ago. I remember it all so clearly now…
One evening back then, I approached my good husband. “Honey, I really need to have some kind of project to do-something more than cleaning, organizing-right now I have the cleanest house in Holtsville…” He looked up from his reading, glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Sure” he breezily responded, “I think that’s a good idea-what do you want to do?” “Well,” I pitched my proposal, “I think it would be an enjoyable venture-an easy project, (Boy-would those words ever come back to bite me!) and a great experience for our grandsons Johnny and Carter if we raised some chickens. Right now the world just seems so unnatural and upside down…I just think we should get back to the simple life, do something pioneering, have something constructive and rewarding to look forward to each day…” Just as easily he answered it would be fine with him, in fact, a clever idea, he thought. He even went so far as to say he would look into either purchasing or building us a coop. Wow! I was in business! Now all I had to do was convince Ashley…
I found her sprawled across the couch in the back room on her phone searching for stores that still carried paper towels.
“Ash,” I tactfully approached her, “Would you ever feel like doing a little project with me?” “Sure, of course,” she replied without looking up from her phone. “Well,” I began, “I think it would be a great thing-and really-a good thing for Johnny and Carter if…um…I…we… raised our own chickens?” Without a moment’s hesitation, she sat up straight, looked up at me through squinted eyes, and asked, “Why on earth would you ever want to do a thing like that?!” I was completely shot out of the saddle.
“Well, I thought it would be something we could try, it would be good for the boys, and I mean, we’ll have fresh eggs every day…” I pleaded. She put down her phone and cocked her head, still looking at me through squinted eyes. “Mom, I mean, I don’t know…it’s going to be a lot of work. Like, do you really think you’ll even eat the eggs?” I hadn’t considered that one. “Well, I think daddy and Johnny and Carter will…” Pleeeease say you’ll help me!” I begged her.
Within months we were the proud owners of an adorable little flock whom we nurtured straight from the shell. And as expected the day arrived when they finally began laying. Our grandson Johnny happened to be over at our house and brought in the first freshly laid eggs from the coop. “Hey Grammy! Here’s your first batch of fresh eggs!” “Oh! Great!” I exclaimed, making an admirable attempt to sound enthusiastic over the little brown, speckled things-although the thought had crossed my mind as to whether or not it was safe to eat the very first batch? I mean, would they somehow be like a weird little practice batch? We cracked one into a bowl. You never saw such a big,
orange yolk-I mean-I don’t know what to compare it to-maybe a canned peach? Johnny and I took one look at it and both said at the same time-“There’s no way I can eat that thing…” Johnny quickly added-“And the gross thing is Grammy-touch it-it’s still warm…” I thought one of us would pass out right there. We put the eggs in a basket and immediately washed our hands. Now what? We both turned and looked at Carter. He said he was game and so I fried up a few for him. Johnny and I stood there and watched him. Carter claimed they were, “The best eggs I ever ate in my whole life!” (But he is also the child who had no moral compunction about climbing inside the coop and combing through the “well-used” hay to retrieve eggs. He even told me he’d like to sleep in there one night because he liked the smell of the coop…) My husband was all for eating the eggs assessing it would be one way to recoup -no pun intended- some of the money he had shelled out-no pun intended- for them.
Well now, fast forward a few years. We are the owners of six enormous, free-ranging, free-loading, Buff Orpington British breed chickens who act like they allow us to live here. I say Guv’na! And Ashley, who was so opposed to the idea in the first place-has taken them under wing– pun intended– adores them and has gone so far as to give them British names-Beatrice, Juliet, Fanny, and so on. She claims she knows each one by name despite the fact the rest of our family knows they look identical to each other. She adores the things but exploits them by using them to produce satirical videos. Allow me to explain. She will gather all of them together, call out football numbers-“22-46-37-Hike!” and send a football sailing across the yard. At which point, the chickens (who were born to play Cricket–not football-come on, Ash!) take off after the ball- half running half flying-wings flapping and feathers everywhere. And as she videos them, she will take particular care to zoom in on Beatrice-the one with one short leg who has this weird, half-hop half-flying thing going on. She also upon occasion sings them to sleep at night through their chicken-wired windows and assures us they all softly “cluck-sing” back to her-and we allllllll believe her…(insert “eye rolling” emoji…)
It may be presumptuous of me to assume there are those among my readers who find they are somewhat tempted to pursue poultry farming. If that is the case, as a friend, may I offer you some unsolicited advice?
1.Do not build a coop! Unle$$ you are married to Elon Mu$k and po$$e$$ a net worth of $235 billion, a$ it will co$t you a$ much a$ adding a $pare room on your hou$e. You can ea$ily a$$emble the one$ you can purcha$e online and $ave your$elf the buck$!
2. Do not scramble-no pun intended-to build nesting boxes either. Chickens don’t care about nesting boxes. They only use them in the movies. Even if you put up a blazing neon sign with an arrow above the boxes that reads, “Free Mealworms if you Lay Eggs Here!” they will lay them all over the coop-or under the nearest shrub.
3. Do not waste your money on fancy marketing maneuvers aimed at well-meaning but naïve raisers of chickens. I have tried to convince Ashley that the creatures for which she is buying, “Chicken snax! With tasty granola, dried cranberries, nuts, and peanut butter!” and feeding homemade banana bread, are the same ones keeping our yard’s population of June bugs, grubs, Gypsy moths at bay. I’m sorry but there’s no possible way our chickens have taste buds!
4. With all the supplies you will purchase regularly for your flock, such as hay, shavings, grain, etc., even if eggs go up to $30 a dozen, it will still be cheaper for you to buy them!
5. Be in the know about the local hawk population for your area, because I can assure you-since you got chickens-they are in the know about you! Find that unsettling? Once I did too. But what I find more unsettling is that Ashley has learned to recognize hawk shrieks and it matters little whether we are all seated at the table and just about to pray over Thanksgiving dinner, or, in the middle of an earthquake, if she even thinks she hears a hawk she drops whatever she’s doing and races off to rescue the flock, picking up some large, blunt object along the way.
6. Of great importance! Get yourself ready for winter. Why? Because your chickens -with their layers of feathers are warmer than you could ever be even if you wore three coats! And if it so happens to snow nine feet overnight you will not only be the one shoveling the driveway and front walkway up to your house you will also be digging out a path to the coop. And once you excavate the mound of snow piled up against the coop door and shovel your way through the run- if you haven’t had a heart attack by then-you might have one when you
discover that chickens hate the snow- and they won’t even put one of their creepy looking little claws out to feel the ground much less step out onto it. Their heads may be small but they still have brains. Which may be something you find worth considering as you drag your frozen body back to the house.
7. And last of all, if you have enjoyed the esteem and friendly camaraderie that comes with being a respected homeowner in your neighborhood-those days are over! Sunrise is like an ancient, pagan trigger for all chickens to squawk like they are being chased by a pack of coyotes, the volume of which rivals the local fire department’s siren. And if you don’t hightail it out to open the coop door at the crack of dawn each and every day-rain-snow-shine or tornado-your neighbors will let you know it!
I hope you enjoyed reading about the joys of raising chickens, I’d like to write a few lines more, but alas, we are on our way to the Tractor Supply Store to purchase another 50-pound bag of feed-which should last about two days…
Thanks for reading!
-Liz
