Migrating Chickens

~ This article first appeared in The Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

The first chickens Gina and I had were pets.

Newly married and full of fresh vigor for life, we collected the birds in early spring and turned them loose in our yard.  The most consistent quirk of our flock was their obsession with the school bus.  Each day at 2:45 they’d stand on the road and look east in anticipation of being run over.  The bus would blow past, all diesel clatter and road dust and heavy exhaust, and our hens would run squawking with the thrill of it to the back of the house, feathers spiraling behind them in the turbulence following the yellow school machine.  Several hours of a frenzied roll call followed the bus passing as the four hens attempted to determine if anyone had actually gotten smashed this time.  None ever did, though I witnessed some close calls.

Then came the fox, followed promptly by a low point in my life that still haunts me almost nine years later.  We found a hen with a gaping hole in her body cavity.  Her prognosis was not good.  I chalked it up as a farm loss.  But soon I saw my pretty new wife, all teary eyes and pouty lips and world-class rear end, so concerned for this poor pet that in her mind memorialized our marriage.  This was no situation to shrug off, she said.  After much harassment I did the unthinkable: I called the vet.

“A…chicken?”  The woman on the other end of the line was polite despite a smile in her voice.  After allowing me to sputter through some kind of pitiful explanation she gently told me that unless this was a very special chicken there was really nothing to be done by the vet that wouldn’t cost six thousand times what one particular bird was worth.  I hung up, patched the bird with antiseptic spray, gauze, and duct tape – all of which she quickly removed and then died – and quietly told myself that I could never set foot in that vet clinic for fear that my voice was recognized as the worried chicken guy.

The remaining three hens came in to winter strong, but several weeks of cold revealed that our facilities were inadequate for the birds.  We gave them away to a neighbor who could better care for the birds.

As I type our current chickens are pecking around in their yard, unable to migrate away from the upcoming cold, dark days of winter.  I am determined to provide sufficient housing for the goofy things and I believe I’ve found a solution in the form of compost.

A deer was killed on the road in front of our house over the summer and I watched with fascination as vultures devoured the entire carcass over the course of just three days.  Crows also took aim at the free meal, fighting the larger birds for a bite or two of rancid meat.  It dawned on me that nature uses birds as an effective clean-up crew, implying that I can use our chickens in the same capacity.  Chickens with their robust gut and compost with its diverse stream of organic refuse are a natural match.

Heat is a byproduct of compost.  Temperatures inside my piles hit a peak that is of constant amazement to me: A shovel, stuck into the center of a working pile, will be almost too hot to touch upon removal.  It seems a shame to waste the warmth.

Very deep bedding is a remedy for multiple livestock ailments.  If manure is the primary component on a barn floor, all of the parasites and pathogens depending on manure find a wonderful place to live, therefore spreading disease throughout whatever bunch of critters is making the manure.  When manure encounters heavy bedding, however, working organisms within the pack consume and convert the manure into a stable form.  Pathogens depending on manure find no home and their lifecycle is sufficiently interrupted.  Thick layers of bedding very closely resemble the beginning stages of a successful compost heap.

I’ve arranged a compost yard complete with chicken living quarters behind our house.  There are two warming factors at work.

First, I’ve designed the “coop” to accept fresh layers of bedding throughout the winter.  As I add bedding the chickens will find themselves closer and closer to the ceiling.  Heat from below will warm the birds, and the reduced air space is easier to regulate in the dead of winter than a large cavern. 

Beside the coop is a larger pile of compost into which I’m continually mixing new material.  The birds delight in eating food scraps from our house and their scratching action keeps the pile aerated on the outer layer.  Once every couple weeks I take a mattock to the heap and turn it over completely, incorporating fresh material and invigorating more heat generation.  It’s like a heated buffet for the birds.  In fact, you could say they’ve migrated south to a resort for winter.

We will see what challenges arise as this experiment moves forward.  Overall I am confident with the plan, and we anticipate warm birds this winter and great garden soil next spring.