Comes the time, comes the word.

The word is "pwned," or "pwnd." According to Urban Dictionary, it "basically means...to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force." It is a voguish, Internet-based word, and lacks vowels to an unpronounceable extent. All of which council against its usage in general writing.

But comes the time, comes the word. I could write that, yesterday, Molson was bested by an opponent or situation beyond his comprehension. But the most elegant way to express yesterday's events? Molson got PWNED.

Molson loves to do his egg eating trick--you know, the one where he eats an egg. He'd do it all day long if we let him. So we are careful never to leave him alone in a room with eggs.

He, in turn, waits patiently to be left alone in a room with eggs. He knows it's going to happen sooner or later. And he's picky about his opportunities--he doesn't risk egg theft when we might hear him standing up on the counter, or if we might come back before he is through. But yesterday morning, when Amy got in the shower, Molson knew his time had come.

There was an egg in a plastic produce bag on the counter. Molson took down the bag, and carefully removed the egg without damaging the bag. Then he went to bask in front of the wood stove with his ill-gotten treasure. Which is where Amy found him, sulky and confused, twenty minutes later. He had been working hard on this:

(remember these?)

PWNED!

PS: Come to think of it, that wooden egg fooled three completely different species yesterday. The chickens were fooled by it and laid eggs around it; the human egg collector was fooled by it and collected it with the real eggs, and then Molson was fooled so hard he was epically pwned. Of all domestic species, only the cat escaped being tricked by that egg... or, if it did fool him, he'll never tell.

How to trick a chicken

Today on How Do Chickens Work?: How (and why) to trick a chicken.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to trick a chicken, I recommend getting specially-produced fake eggs. I ordered some a few days ago, and today they came. Yesss. Step one of my tricky plan: complete.

This afternoon I used the eggs to seed some nest boxes that I would LOVE for the chickens to use, but that the chickens are not currently using. Some chickens are instead putting their eggs in crazy places, like on the ledge, or under the chicken house, or in the stone wall on the other side of the fence: all places where I cannot reach.

But here's what happens when the hens see a collection of wooden eggs in the nest boxes: "Oh," they think. "What a great place for a nest! Some wooden hen has accumulated a lot of eggs here already; this spot must be very safe. I think I'll put one in, too." And then they start laying their eggs in the nest boxes. Which is far more convenient for me, and saves Amy, with her healthy knees, from having to climb over the fence and back with eggs all the time.

And, hold onto your hat... ready to get your word-nerd socks blown off? These fake eggs are NEST EGGS. Then the hens will add to them. That's where "nest egg" comes from!

I have high hopes for these fake eggs. I used to try and trick the chickens with golf balls, but the chickens were not totally fooled. Instead of "Wow, what a perfect nesting site!", they seemed to think "Wow, these people are really bad at golf! This seems like a dangerous place to lay eggs."

Spring Chicken

Here is one of those healthy Spring Chickens. This guy was one of the first to hatch, in late May, so he is about 5 months old. He has his dad's comb, the "rose comb" typical of Wyandottes, which is much more resistant to frostbite than a big single comb. Otherwise he looks a lot like his mama, a Brahma. Look how tall he his--his shoulder comes halfway up the neck of the chicken standing next to him! He is also broad--broader than he looks in this photo. But Brahmas are "slow to mature," so he may be 6 months old or more when he attains his full size. (By contrast, industrial meat production birds reach 'slaughtering size' between 6 and 8 weeks (WEEKS!) of age. Such rapid growth is quite injurious to the chickens in question...see below for our 6 week old chicks, who are healthy and happy but not too substantial yet. A couple mouthfuls, tops.)

A lot of this guy's height comes from his giant legs. Click on the photo to get a better look at those honkers. He looks almost like he's got stilts when he stands erect. I call him "Legs." He's big and handsome, and I feel affectionate towards his Brahma half. I feel hopeful that he will display all the watchful and generous qualities of a good roo, without being a jerk. I'd love to keep him in the flock. We will know pretty soon, as he is quickly becoming a man. He just got his crow last week. His crow was awful at first--it sounded like a chicken being deflated--but it is getting better with practice. C'mon Legs! Be a good rooster!

Chicken Talk IV: No Spring Chicken

Here's another question of chicken talk: what does it mean to be "no spring chicken?" Well, chicks hatched in the spring are healthier and more vigorous than those hatched in the summer or early fall. Spring hatchlings have months to feast on the ample forage, and to feather out and grow healthy and strong before the weather turns cold.

Our last batch of chicks are no spring chickens: they hatched the second week in September. Six weeks later, at the end of October, they are still kind of little dudes. Their wings and breasts and backs are fully feathered, and they even have teeny tailios, but they are still sporting their baby-chicken neckfuzz.




Their mama is still taking good care of them, snuggling them in a nest at night instead of roosting on a perch. Soon she will wash her hands (wings) of motherhood though, and start roosting on her own. With November breathing down their fuzzy little necks, I hope these little guys and their teeny feathers are big enough to take it.

Chicken Talk III: Whut??

Yesterday, while buying chicken feed, I was suckered in by a checkout line magazine called "Chickens." I was particularly attracted to the cover story: Twelve Common Ailments and How to Prevent Them. "Ooooh," I thought, for I am a nerd who must know more about chicken ailments.

I thought a magazine would be a more trustworthy source than the Internet. (Sorry, Internet.) But. I don't know about the cover story's veracity, but let's just say it is now open for debate. Because flipping through the rest of the magazine, I read the following dubious advice in an article about chicken chores:

"Making friends with your flock is easy, fun and serves a practical purpose as well: You'll find it easier to observe your chickens, to lure them into the coop at night and to catch them if they don't regard you as a predator."

Lure them into the coop at night?? This is so puzzling to me that I can't stop thinking about it. Chickens proverbially come home to roost. There exists a time-worn adage to that exact effect. The adage exists because once a chicken sleeps somewhere--like its coop--once or twice, you'll have a hell of a time trying to get it to sleep anywhere else. It's automatic.

So it makes me wonder: Is this article's author going out every night to lure her five chickens into their little coop? And does she ever notice that if she turns up late, they are already inside? And if so, is she pleased that she has trained them?

Chicken Talk II: Fowl Language

Today on Chicken Talk we will examine the adage "Don't count your chickens before they hatch": a fairly straightforward piece of advice that would not seem to require chicken experience. Some eggs might not hatch. You might get, like, nine actual chickens from ten eggs. Got it.

Well. NOW I got it even more. I submit, for your perusal, our hens' wildly varying hatch rates this spring and summer:
1. 0/5 = 0% (Mama Orpo)
2. 4/5 = 80% (Wyandotte hen)
3. 8/10= 80% (Orpington hen)
4. 1/16= 6% (Mama Orpo again)
5. 2/6 = 33% (Barred Rock hen)
6. 4/6 = 66% (Brahma hen)

The main story up there is Mama Orpo, who comes in with 0% in slot #1 and again with 6% in slot #4. Mama Orpo is clearly an ill-fated mother. (note: despite the title, that sentence is as close as we'll be getting to foul language.) Her story has it all: highs and lows, hopes and disappointments, a heroine who overcomes a fatal flaw, a frenemy...and ultimately even a happy ending. That's right: her story, in the next post, will be a Very Special Episode.

Chicken Talk

There has been a chicken lull in my life recently. Oh, we still HAVE a number of chickens,* but I have not been out recently to pet them and feed them scraps, observe and photograph them, or plan a life of plunder and international debauchery with them on the high seas (or, again, fields).

Instead I have been lying indoors, recovering from knee surgery, awash in a sea (or, again, a field) of narcotic pain relievers. And though I have not been able to visit the chickens, I have had ample opportunity to put in order some thoughts regarding chickens and the English language. Granted, sometimes these thoughts haven't made a lot of sense (c.f. pain relievers, narcotic; above).

English has a lot of Chicken Talk. "Nest egg," "broody," "chickens will come home to roost," "cocky," "something to crow about"... But since not many people keep chickens any more, these phrases no longer evoke the images they used to. Now that I "chill with my peeps" though, many of these old phrases now seem fresh, fascinating and funny in a way they had not been before.

For example: after a hen lays an egg, she can be incredibly noisy about her accomplishment. "i did-a-EGG! did-a-EGG! did-a-EGG!" she clamors. And when one hen starts up, the others catch the urge too: "she did-a-EGG! did-a-EGG! did-a-EGG!" They chorus and walk around and carry on together for a bit. It is so loud that it is frankly alarming, up close.

Now, the other night Amy and I were recalling something ridiculous we had experienced together, leaning on each other and laughing in front of the kitchen sink. We were not unpleasantly deprived of air, but our breathing was definitely subordinate to the laughter. Our breathing patterns--similar, but out of sync--went, "'laugh'-'laugh'-'suck in air,' 'laugh'-'laugh'-'suck in air'," repeat. (...repeat...repeat.) The drawing-in of air was louder and harsher than the breathing/laughing sounds on their way out.

It occurred to me pleasantly in the middle of this laughter that we sounded a lot like the pleased, egg-accomplishing hens. "Laugh-laugh-BREATHE, laugh-laugh-BREATHE" sounded like "did-a-EGG, did-a-EGG." And right on the heels of this realization came the twin realizations that (a) the egg noise that the hens make must be called "cackling," and (b) Amy and I were "cackling like a pair of hens."

Whoa! I never knew what 'cackling' sounded like! Even when I heard the actual sound, from the hens themselves! The word "cackle" sounds like "crackle," so I assumed that it must describe a crackly sort of laughter. I imagined it was a slightly pejorative term, relevant mainly to witches and crones. But is it instead a neutral to positive word, describing pleasant gasps of amusement, shared in company? The dictionary would tell us, probably. But in my current state the dictionary is much too far away to help us.

And that is just episode ONE of Chicken Talk, which was quite a bit longer than I thought it would be (narcotic pain relievers = trouble editing down prose? or tightly plotting a story?). So, we will end here. Vaya con pollos, chicken friends.

* n = a million

Take THAT, conventional wisdom!

All eggs. ONE basket. Whoa!!!
Our hens produced 15 beautiful eggs yesterday, 13 of which are pictured. The other two...

Here's a tip: Conventional wisdom would suggest that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. But I'm here to tell you straight up, it is more important that you do not put five eggs in your pants pockets, four in each hand, and two clutched precariously in the crooks of your elbows. That is going to end badly.