The Automatic Chicken Door

I am so grateful for my automatic chicken door. Every day, all by itself, it lets my chickens out of their house an hour after daybreak and locks them safely back inside just after dark. That means we don't have to be here anymore to do it and, more importantly, neither do our pet sitters. I probably can't describe what that means to me, but let me try.

Having so many animals, and at the same time loving to get away on weekends and for Christmas and Thanksgiving and summer vacation and sometimes just for an evening, we depend with the helplessness of new-born babies on pet sitters. In the early years, we relied on my husband's smart, young workmates, but then our dog Buffalo threw up some tampons on somebody's foot, and I guess word got out.

Beauregard III

Later, we lost two pet sitters because of our rooster Beauregard. As one explained, it wasn't because the donkey had slammed a stall door on her arm and raised a lump the size of Mt. Everest -- donkeys will do that, she said -- or because the dog went missing for an afternoon. It wasn't even because the chair she bought with her earnings blew off the truck and smashed to pieces on the interstate. No, she said, it was just because of the rooster. Awash in testosterone and dedicated to barnyard security, he saw the world through Blackwater eyes. He caught the pet sitter inside the perimeter one afternoon and, although I don’t think there was any real harm done, she was very upset that no one came when she screamed. She swore she would never pet sit for us again, and so far she has been good to her word.

I'm not proud of that episode, but things do happen sometimes when folks work around farm animals they are unaccustomed to. Not everybody knows how to maneuver through a crowd of donkeys or give a Rottweiler a pill or spot a rooster who’s ready to attack; and even if someone can manage part of that, she may not know the others. Our pet sitter, for example, is an expert horsewoman with big dogs of her own. Alas, however, she does not have chickens.

So we were thrilled when our 12-year-old neighbor Nathaniel came to work for us. Already a frequent and welcome visitor to our barnyard, he had a knack for animals and a cautious outlook overall. When he took on our farm as his after-school job, we fell through a wormhole into a parallel universe.  Four years without incident; four years of freedom. Thank you, Nathaniel, for that Golden Age.

There are no teens in our neighborhood now. Our grown-up neighbors help out when they can and we appreciate it; but when nobody here can do it, someone drives out from town, three miles each way. Our pet sitters make two trips a day to feed everybody, and until recently, because chickens don't come home to roost until dark, they made one more trip after sundown just to lock up the birds.

The Door

And that’s why our automatic chicken door is so wonderful. Its little plexiglass door opens and closes on an electric timer, replacing the late-night commute.  That means no more icy roads, no more stumbling around in the dark, no more watching out for copperheads, no more interrupted evenings, and maybe most important, no more encounters with the rooster.

As this small convenience settles into place, making life here on our farm a little bit easier for everyone and bringing us a little closer to a manageable retirement, my grateful heart, as always, fills with Southern song.

"Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears,

While we all sup sorrow with the poor;

There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;

Oh Hard times come again no more."

“Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,

Hard Times, hard times, come again no more

Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;

Oh hard times come again no more." 

Hard Times                                     

Stephen Foster, 1856                                     

Memorable Chickens

He likes his Starbucks.

There are really only two reasons why we have chickens.  My husband likes them because they lay eggs he can sell to support his Starbucks habit; I like them for the company.  Since we threw out our tv a year ago, the birds have been my entertainment.  They kibitz like tiny Bundys and lounge about like Sugarbaker sisters.  They hunt down their prey like small, feathered, merciless Jack Bauers.  But at the same time, occasionally, they are unexpectedly kind, and over the years, some have been truly memorable.

Our first chicken was Henrietta, a small Barred Rock who had been raised as a pet by a four-year-old.  We bought her from the little girl’s grandfather at his house beside the railroad track on Eubanks Road.  He told us how his granddaughter had cared for the little hen and asked us if we would mind taking a runt.  Kind old man.  But then, without so much as a faretheewell, he snared Henrietta with a crab net and tossed her into our box.  At home, we called her Henry.  Gentle bird, she slept on the porch rail outside our door and, always thin, she came inside on winter evenings to eat baked potatoes with sour cream on the kitchen sink.  We don't know what killed her, but it left nothing more than a perfect ring of feathers and her craw, still filled with corn.   Our Rottweiller Roxanne slept 20 feet away.  It was mid-afternoon



Henrietta

Then there was Frankie, who came over the fence to join our flock after hers was massacred by a teenaged raccoon.  Our neighbors Richard and Betsy had called her Francoise when she lived with them, but after she walked through the woods and across all that open country by herself, to a flock she had only heard in the distance, she became just plain Frankie.


Miss Janie Mangum gave us the singing hen.  Miss Janie had sold the rest of her flock earlier, and in the process the singing hen had wound up on the truck by mistake.  She had sung out to let Miss Janie know and Miss Janie had rescued her and brought her to us.  Miss Janie loved that bird and knew her voice, but I could never distinguish it. I was never quite sure Miss Janie had gotten the right bird off the truck that day, and I only hope we actually had the singing hen and that she lived a good life.

Mom Chick hatched and raised little Peep, the only chicken to live her entire life on our property. Because of Mom Chick, Peep was born free and grew up without ever knowing a cage. Thank you, Mom Chick.

Sue Ellen was a contemporary of Henrietta. She used to stand by and watch the little bird get special attention, and after Henrietta died, she worked hard to take her place. Sue Ellen liked to sit on the arm of my rocking chair to eat green grapes and ice cream. When I worked in my garden, she crowded under me to get the worms I dug up, and when I mowed the lawn she walked along beside me, picking off the crickets and grasshoppers that escaped the blade. She laid eggs that were too big to fit even into extra-large cartons but made great gifts for our friends. And with no rooster on the property, she led her flock for 5 years without event. That may not sound like much, but if a hen's skills are not up to the job, she can be a heavy-handed leader whose tenure is marked by cruelty and dissension. We didn’t learn that until after Sue Ellen had died, because during her reign we had peace.



Sue Ellen

Since Sue Ellen, we have had two dynasties of roosters, the Barred Rock Beauregards and Rhode Island Roy.  Beauregard I was a breeding loaner, with us for only a short time.  He was a very tall rooster who, for some anomaly of genetics or habit, goose stepped with straight legs like a Wehrmacht soldier.


Beauregard II died young.  He was murdered by a hawk while crowing the alarm from a fallen log. The hawk, no bigger than Beauregard himself, landed with one foot on the rooster's head, a talon in each temple, and killed him on the spot.



Beauregard III

 Beauregard III stayed with us for seven years, god help us. He was a cautious, neurotic, and aggressive bird, unsafe for small children, hated and feared by pet sitters, visitors, and my husband alike.  But he was devoted to his hens, and to his credit, he never lost one.  His hens loved him and his chicken yard was peaceful and orderly.  In return, I admired and appreciated him.  Sure, he was scary, but Good Grief, he was only two feet tall -- how much damage could he really do?

After Beuaregard died, we retired the name and the breed and call our new rooster Rhode Island Roy.  I hand raised Roy almost from a chick, hoping someday he would ride on my shoulder like a macaw or pull a wagon like a rooster I've seen in photos.  But instead, Roy followed in Beauregard's path.  When he reached puberty, his outlook soured, and by the time his spurs matured, he had become a danger to us all.  But this time I took matters in hand.  If you have an aggressive rooster, you may be interested in this.

Whenever I saw Roy coming at me, I turned to face him and stuck out my foot, sole up (don't try this without good stout shoes), as a target, and he bounced off it, no harm done.  Being repelled seemed to confuse him.  He would stagger to his feet, regain his composure, and come at me again, until eventually he wore himself out.  Then, if I could manage it, I would catch him by the tail feathers and hold him down for a few minutes, which he hated.  The key was to block his assault without hurting him.  Chickens are delicate; one good kick can be fatal.  You have to hold your foot still.

Surprisingly, Roy was a fast learner.  I think within a week or so, I became top rooster and he stopped attacking me.  For awhile, he occasionally looked askance at me or even started toward me, but he never followed through.  I just turned to face him, which made him stop, think, and then go on to something else.  These days, he is trusting enough to turn his back on me, and he passes under my arm to come and go from his yard.  In the past couple of weeks, he has been eating figs out of my hand and it's been more than a year since our last encounter.

The payoff for having Roy on the property is huge. After a period of anarchy when the Mean Girls tried and failed to lead the flock, Roy has returned peace to our chicken yard.  By sheer force of personality, he manages for the most part to keep his women out of my flower beds, and for that I am wholeheartedly in his debt.

I hope Roy will be with us for a long time.  Already, he is memorable.