Saturday was moving up day in the henyard. The two-month old pullets, the young hens that had been confined to a small house and yard since leaving their brooder, were joining the old girls in the main yard. Since I had nothing better to do, I sat down on the huge pine stump right in the middle of the action and watched.

Eight weeks ago, 30 tiny chicks, fresh out of the box and their cross-country trip from Murray McMurray’s Missouri hatchery, had huddled under a 100-watt bulb. It was late May, but still chilly enough that I kept the brooder box well-swaddled in towels to keep out drafts.

Although everyone looked healthy when they arrived, the first night we lost one chick, apparently trampled by her sisters. I’ve been doing this for 50 years, but even now the sight of that lifeless little thing hit hard.

In just a few weeks those downy little balls of fluff were turning into adolescents, new feathers sticking out awkwardly, and one looking suspiciously roosterish. Uh oh. The folks at McMurray must have slipped him in as we’d pointedly ordered only pullets.

His identity was confirmed one morning when we all heard a pubescent voice trying out a cock-a-doodle-do. A rooster in the making for sure.

We already have Lennie, one of several large Lavender Orpingtons that Rose Lowell raised; Lennie’s a gentle giant, presiding over his flock of hens (as opposed to lording over them as some previous pompous roosters have done.) Hens lay eggs, but what do roosters contribute? As you might imagine, there would be no chicks without a rooster. He spends most of his days, when he’s not eating or patrolling the yard for intruders, hopping the hens.

He grabs one by the neck feathers, jumps on top of her; there’s a flurry of activity and she runs off, shaking herself free of him, while he nonchalantly strolls away. It takes all of five seconds. If there was no rooster in the yard the hens would lay just as many eggs, but they wouldn’t be fertile.

Crack open an egg and if there’s a small dot on the yolk that’s a fertile egg. Keep that egg warm for 21 days and it will grow into a chick. Simple, eh?

Of course, being male, roosters hate competition, and that’s where the youngster is a problem. I’m hoping there will be so many girls to take care of that they’ll split the territory.

Actually, Lennie’s girls are only charitably called that. The henhouse is more accurately an old hen home as no hen is younger than three.

They were hard workers, those birds, each, in their prime, laying some 300 eggs a year. But that prime lasts only a couple of years, and then they slack off.

The old lady of the flock, Rosella, probably hasn’t laid an egg since she came to live here. We took her in from a neighbor, traumatized by her own flock and with one eye pecked out, several years ago. She’s actually the most handsome, with glossy, dark auburn feathers, and keeps herself aloof from the others. Socializing has obviously not worked for her.

At the moment we have half a dozen Red hens, four big Buff Orpingtons and a couple of Pearl White Leghorns. If you buy eggs from us, you may notice an occasional white egg from those Leghorns. Most of our eggs are a shade of light brown from the Reds and the Orpingtons, and range in size from quite small to enormous double yolkers. This is a function of their age as older birds are more likely to lay oversize eggs.

The Orpingtons are docile birds, and liable to go broody. Or that’s what they think they’re doing. A broody hen is one that insists that she must sit on the eggs. This is actually what her nature tells her to do, sit on the eggs until they hatch. Most breeds of modern hens have had broodiness bred out of them, but not the Orpingtons.

One of them has her preferred nest box, and every morning when I pull down the door to the row of nests there she is, feathers all fluffed out and settled in. There may or may not be an egg under her, and she only makes a feeble attempt to stop me from taking it.

Meanwhile, the Reds, who lay most of the eggs we get these days, are in some other phase of old henhood. Everyone is either moulting or going bald. Their feathers are all in disarray, and the tops of their heads bare, an angry looking, pimply red.

And they’re pissed off.

When I opened up the nursery fence the other morning to let the sleek, nubile teen agers out to mingle with their elders for the first time,  those old ladies were having none of it. Whenever a young one ventured too close she’d get pecked or even grabbed in a vicious beak. It didn’t take long for the youngsters to get the drill: these big ladies were not their friends.

Chickens start to lay eggs at about 5 months, so by the end of October we ought to start seeing a rainbow of eggs from our young flock: five Buff Orpingtons (light brown), five Pearl White Leghorns (white), five Aracaunas (blue/green), fiveMarrens (chocolate brown), and ten Rhode Island Reds (medium brown).

The old girls will settle in with Rosella, the matriarch of the flock, and live out their days. And Lennie? Hopefully, he’ll have made his peace with that brash upstart, still-to-be-named white rooster. With so many females running around, young and old, there ought to be enough work for both of them.

Blueberry Wingding Coming up

Following the summer berry theme, the Lincolnville Improvement Association (LIA) is gearing up for another Blueberry Wingding this Saturday, Aug. 13, 7-10 a.m. at the Lobster Pound Restaurant. The Wingding: a blueberry pancake breakfast – two pancakes, bacon or sausage, juice and coffee – eaten inside or out, either way with a view of our beautiful Penobscot Bay, along with a bake sale of blueberry treats, a great white elephant/yard sale (don’t miss this one!) and a chance to win a gift certificate for one of our local businesses:

McLaughlin’s Lobster Shack

Whales Tooth Pub

Inn at Ocean’s Edge

The Red Cottage

Cellardoor Winery

Aster and Rose at Youngtown Inn

Lincolnville General Store

Lincolnville Beach Store

Dot’s Market

The funds raised from this one event are distributed as scholarships to Lincolnville students as they graduate high school. 

Sympathy

Condolences to the family and friends of Cora May Milliken who passed away recently.