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>> Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Wisconsin Historical Museum
History Sandwiched In lecture series. Today we're going to hear interesting stories from
backyard chickens and the phenomenal components and stories that they have to share with us.
It's my pleasure to welcome Susan Troller today to help us
learn more stories about our chicken friends.
Thank you.
Please, a warm welcome for Susan.
Susan Troller: Thank you [APPLAUSE]
everyone for coming today. I'm always excited to talk about
I'm not a chicken expert but I chickens.
love animals and I've had animals all my life. In fact, writing this book has
been great fun for me partly
because I've had a chance to work with my friend and designer
also with the artist Caroline Beckett on the book and
Sue Medaris, S.V. Medaris. Her work is fantastic for anybody who has seen it.
She's had shows at Overture.
She had an incredible one chick show about chickens that was at the Madison Public Library
a couple of years ago.
And so it's been a fun collaboration.
book because Caroline approached But I really started doing the
me and said she would like to do something with Sue's art, and I had wanted chickens
for 35 years. Now I have lots of other
animals. I have horses.
I have dogs.
I have cats. I've raised dairy heifers.
I've had Angora goats. I've had steers.
I've rescued raccoons and rabbits. All kinds of things,
but no chickens.
My husband said that he didn't want chickens and he had been very generous about every other
animal so that was kind of the
line in the sand. No chickens. So when I got the request to
write this book, I said as any
reporter knows you have to write about what you know.
And he said, well, if you're So I wanted chickens.
and I have really, really writing enjoyed them.t's only There is a phenomenon that's So we wound up getting chickens
People are getting chickens in going on around the country.
cities, in suburbs. They're not just for breakfast anymore.
They are a pet with a purpose.
Sometimes you'll see bumper stickers that say, "My pet makes me breakfast."
[LAUGHTER]
Waves of chicken fever come and So go throughout history.ce in urban and suburban lives that they have never had before.
And seeing as I'm at the Historical Society here I
thought that I would read one very quick little thing from
The Field Guide to Chickens by Pam Percy.
And what she says is hen fever
swept the nation. We could be talking about now. As described in chicken breeder
George Burnham's The History
exhibition of fancy poultry in of the Hen Fever: A Humorous Record, 1855. When Boston held the first
the United States of America in 1849, the American Poultry Industry was truly launched.
So the interest in chickens and raising chickens in unusual ways
over the decades. But right now we're in a period has of chicken fever.gone So the first thing I'm going to
read from our book, Cluck:
pieces about roosters. From Jungle Fowl to City Chicks, is "Why Chickens?" And then I'll read a couple of
I was waiting to see if we had children in the audience. I don't really read the rooster
stories when there are children in the audience.
[LAUGHTER] With chickens there's a fair
degree of sex and violence, so it's for an adults-only
after "Why Chickens?" From barnyard to backyard, lowly audience. So that's what we're going to do
hens have fluffed up their feathers and flown the country
coop. Newly welcome in cities from
purpose supplying eggs for the Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, they become pets with a
table, fertilizer for the garden, and laughs, lot of laughs, for their city slicker
friends.
In recent years chicken fans have successfully sought zoning changes to allow hen house
keeping in many urban and suburban areas. The result is a boon in backyard
Quite a journey from jungle fowl poultry.
to city chicks. Although roosters remain unwelcome in most urban or
semi-urban settings, that's probably a good thing, the
newly chic hen is definitely something to crow about
if you've caught chicken fever. The chicken's current role as a quirky urban status symbol is apparent in a variety of ways.
There are innumerable chicken with websites and chat rooms
lights for baby chicks or asking full of newbie fowl aficionados learning how to set up brooder
questions about acceptable rooster behavior and egg laying etiquette.
You can go into many chi-chi
urban pet stores and find chicken supplies including pricey organic food right next
to the designer dog leashes and hand-crafted cat climbing trees.
In neighborhoods that have really gone crazy for chickens,
regularly scheduled hen house tours are popular and allow fowl
palaces and cleverly painted fanciers an opportunity to take a peek at other people's poultry
coops. It's kind of like a Parade of Homes for hens and their
friends, and anyone who is
involved with the chicken group here in Madison there has been an ordinance on the books for
about the last four years that
have allowed people to keep four chickens, no roosters, in town. And they do have chicken coop
tours quite regularly and they
are fun. There's also been a surge of
in 4H classes and growing interest in ornamental chicken city kids showing their chickens
characteristics. breeds with spectacular feathers, colors, or unusual
From Jersey Giants to the tiniest Bantams, from Frizzles to Silkies.
In addition, a new generation of
small acreage back to the land young farmers has stirred growing interest in sturdy
practical heritage chicken
farms utilized birds that had been very specifically adapted might have known and loved. While industrial scale chicken
small flocks of chickens at home for fast growth or phenomenal egg production, those who keep
often favor old fashioned dual purpose chicken breeds good at
For keepers of small backyard flocks, disposition matters, supplying both eggs and meat.
too. Anyone keeping chickens
primarily as egg-laying pets
chicken. will tend to choose a winning personality over a speeding conversion from chick to fried
Few would argue that keeping a tiny flock of chickens from home-raised eggs is a
money-making proposition for
urban or suburban dwellers. Instead, keeping chickens is primarily a labor of love as
well as a very direct way to
connect with the food we eat. The current craze for chickens at home coincides with a trend
of wanted to know more about the
sources of our food. Recent scares associated with factory scale farming of eggs,
meat, and produce have created
Like planting and harvesting a greater awareness for the virtues and good taste of providing these things locally.
garden or buying from a farmer's market, keeping chickens gives
control over that most basic of needs providing nourishing food for the table. us a sense that we have some
about being virtuous or nostalgic. But keeping chickens isn't just
vocalizations, their It's also surprisingly fun. With their variety of
the natural world, bugs, fundamentally whimsical behavior, and their interesting interactions with each other and
breezes, anything that looks like food, or a real or imagined
entertaining. And although they've been part enemy, chickens are undeniably
of human life and civilization for almost 10,000 years, part of
the charm of chickens is that they remain essentially and relentlessly themselves, little affected by human rules of fair
play, morality, or etiquette. As we raise fragile little
chicks, gather eggs, clean the coop, feed and water our flock,
protect our birds from
predators, and there are lots of them, and even butcher our
and observers in their chickens, we become both actors
chickenish lives. When we keep chickens in any setting, rural or urban, we,
too, become part of the cycles
of life, death and everything in between that's always helped
hardship and uncertainty of farm dignify the dirt and work,
the funny and the ribald, the brave, the bizarre, the tender, Plus thand the beautiful.ide of the coin of living with animals,
plastic, fantastic and phony, and chicken keeping is the very definition of down to earth. In a world where much seems
going on, and it's a reminder that we, too, are part of the big wheel of life. There's a surprising amount
essays is all about. That's what this book of art and
And one of the things that I've learned in giving these talks is here that is called "Wicked Roosters This Way Come."
that not only do chickens have stories, chickens are kind of
individuals and I've got these
seven chickens right now and they have very, very individual personalities, some more
interesting than others.
The roosters are particularly interesting. Not necessarily in a good way.
But it has been really a
have chicken stories too. fA surprising number of peoplet thave chicken stories, things but whenever I do a talk, people
on a farm or I was even doing something at Overture and someone raised her hand and she thlives in Madison and on theen
shores of Lake Monona and they
had a rooster named Albert in their basement for six months. He was the result of a science
experiment at school that their daughter brought home.
And roosters have a bad rap. So there are many, many chicken stories.
Some of them are delightful. But they are not all serial rapists or aggressive with tiny farm children.
And in fact, Big Tiny, who was the subject of the biggest
the one chick show at the library which you might have painting that Sue Medaris did at
there was a 12-foot by 20-foot seen. When you walked up the stairs
painting of an enormous chicken, a legendary chicken, a beautiful
Big Tiny. This is his story. chicken, a good chicken named
Rest his feathered soul, Big Tiny was a lady's man.
Big Tiny, or Big Boy as he may
Like most Orpington roosters, he have been known in particularly tender or intimate moments, was an exemplary Buff Orpington.
was a large blonde handsome fellow, imposing and attractive. Surprisingly, for a rooster he
was neither vain nor arrogant when he could have been both. Big Tiny had the confidence of a
never seemed to be in a hurry. born leader, and as a result he
He had a calm, capable demeanor in all kinds of company. As other lesser roosters
squabbled, fluffed, and fought, Big Tiny strolled on by,
I have more important things to do like find some bugs for these magisterial and measured. Let them sort it out.
fine hens, he seemed to say. Naturally, as Sue tells it, the
girls couldn't get enough of
him. When Big Tiny came out of the coop there was always this kind
of a thrill and it just looked
like the hens were swooning, you know, she recalled. It was always like, oh, Big
Tiny, here he comes, he's so
cool. So Big Tiny was kind of like a chicken rock star, among a
certain set anyway. Clearly he had no intentions of taking his show on the road.
let his superiority go to his head and he didn't take the attention of his little flock But hfor granted either. never
Big Tiny was inherently generous
and it was perhaps this as much as his sturdy good looks and his cool unflappable demeanor that
recommended him to every hen on the place.
being the first one at According to Sue he had a habit of finding tasty tidbits or
breakfast, lunch, or dinner. As he checked out the menu he made little chortling
tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck-tuck murmurs
to signal the chow looks good, all is well in our world. So the hens, assured of safety
and something delicious to eat, would come running, and gallant Big Tiny would step back until
Clearly this food and safety everyone had eaten her fill.
signal that brings hens running is a useful thing to know if you're a rooster.
Suffice it to say that Big Tiny saw lots of enthusiastic action.
But not all roosters are created equal or equally good.
Sue says some roosters make this
distinctive food vocalization and when the hungry girls come running it's all too clear these
guys aren't advertising a nice
my pretty, they say. caterpillar or some corn. Forget the food, I've got something else in mind for you,
The hens, because they're chickens and not much given to logical thinking, rise to the
bait every single time. Nonetheless, it doesn't make
them like or trust a deceitful rooster.
I have a friend who won't let a rooster on her place, Sue continues, she says all they
cause trouble for everybody else. But she never met Big Tiny. So that's the story of Big Tiny.
And he was a prince among chickens. Now my own experience with
Just like Julie is saying she's got the day old chicks at the museum today, we got little tiny roosters has been quite mixed.
And we bought them from a little fluff ball chicks.
boy in the Viroqua area. And we weren't quite sure what
We wanted ultimately four or the mix was going to be.
five hens. So we got eight chicks and we thought we'd just kind of figure
out how things would work out from there. We weren't sure which were boys and which were girls.
It turned out that there were ultimately two roosters in that group and six hens. So then it was we had to figure
out what we were going to do
with the roosters. And I learned that they were
my favorite chicken from the fascinating and interesting, and
very beginning from a little rooster named Buddy.
"Buddy to Bully." We got the chicks in May. May turns to June, June to July. And this is a story called
you are watching closely, the passage of time feels accelerated because they grow so With a small flock of chickens
In just a few weeks our Buff fast.
Orpingtons changed from adorable golden balls of downy fluff to
Their legs seemed to grow knobby gawky, awkward adolescents.
almost overnight and their feathers turned into a messy
and shapes that gave them a perpetual bad hair day look. looking pastiche of sizes
Meanwhile my best chicken friend remained handsome Buddy.
Unlike the other Orpingtons, he never went through an ugly phase
caught, racing over and nearly as an adolescent. He was always eager to be
leaping up into my arms if he thought I'd take him for a stroll.
He seemed to love to chat and would look quizzically back at
to fly much, as if he had a built in aversion to looking me when I spoke to him. He had the good sense not to try
every time I looked at this over ridiculous. I couldn't help but smiling
sized good looking chicken who I believed loved me best. His comb grew quickly to a rich
scarlet color.
His lustrous golden feathers were always beautiful.
spent a fortune at the salon. Even his weird chicken legs looked somewhat muscular and tan Had the look of someone who
bluish yellow. rather than scaly and scary or
When the crowing began in July signaling that we did indeed
chickens this is usually the way have a rooster, when you have
you know which ones are the roosters because you start hearing little rooster calls.
I knew immediately by its confident tone that it could be no one other than Buddy Orpington.
It was right from the beginning a big bell-like cry.
I am, I am, I am, he seemed to shout morning and night.
His bold ca-ca-ca-ca-roo was
never timid or tentative, and he didn't seem to need any practice
But shortly after we began to hear Buddy's self-congratulatory for that proud trumpet call.
er-er-er-a-a-roo. This was no alpha rooster for sure based on his vocalization. But who was he and what was he
trying to say, and how could we deal with not one but two would-be leaders of the flock?
apologetic that it was hard to The voice was so soft, so almost
pin down. But I had my suspicions as I began seeing Barrell sometimes
roosting on the same roost as Buddy, and they often seemed to feed together first thing in the
I began thinking of them as the boys and the rest of the flock morning.
Darrell. as the girls. I changed Barrell's name to
their coop. All of the sudden there was a grouflurry of furious noiseging screeching and squawking so loud
that we dashed up the hill to make sure some predator hadn't
decided to grab a chicken dinner during daylight.
By the time we arrived on the scene, whatever had gone seemed over and all the chickens were
But that evening when it was present and accounted for.
roosting time, Darrell was a no-show.
branches, far from the flock, apparently prepared to sleep I found him huddled under some
me and was willing to follow me back down the hill when I separatecalled.he open. But he was very slow and limping
badly, although I couldn't find any visible injury. There was no fuss when he went
chickens and Buddy paid no in to roost among the other
attention to him whatsoever. But we didn't hear that gentle
months. Soon after, Buddy, who still little crowing sound again for
raced to greet me with all kinds of chat and great enthusiasm for
any treats I might have, began
rituals. to show a new interest in his fellow flock members. I'd read about rooster courtship
Apparently Buddy had not. Rather than waste his time luring his would-be girlfriends
with treats or any displays of
dancing or wing dragging, he seemed to favor a more direct approach.
It involved standing quietly one
moment and then jumping with all his force and ribald enthusiasm on an unsuspecting pullet.
She would shriek and struggle.
He would hold on to anything he could get his beak or talons into.
It wasn't long before all the Buff Orpingtons, the targets for
They were losing feathers. Buddy's sexual attention, had become flighty and neurotic.
Following a particularly rambunctious activity they might
It was not a pretty sight. limp or drag a wing.
It was a brutally hot July day when I finally had to make my final decision about who would
go and who would stay.
the back door registered Buddy made it easy, actually. I came home from work about 4:00PM and the temperature at
96 degrees in the shade. I was worried about the chickens
perched somewhere under the breezy shelter of their fenced in the heat and hoped they'd be
run. But no, it was only Buddy
strutting about, airing his wings from time to time and sipping water in the shade. The girls and Darrell
were nowhere to be seen.
I found the rest of the flock, minus Buddy, huddled in the blazing hot coop, panting,
several of them with their eyes closed. They were apparently too
obviously prepared to make intimidated to come out and were
bully. themselves into roasted chicken rather than brave a confrontation with Buddy the
With two roosters and too many chickens to house through the winter I had known from the
beginning that some birds wouldn't make the final cut.
Now it was clear who had to be sent away.
For the health and safety of the
rest of the flock, my beautiful friendly show off Buddy, the chicken with a dazzling vertical
take off when he wanted to pluck
grapes out of my fingers would be the first to go. Rehoming a rooster, especially
a pet rooster, is not an easy task. They're forbidden in most cities
that's too rough with the hens, no matter what other charms he and no one wants a rooster
might offer. I wasn't even sure Buddy would
be friendly with anyone besides me, as he seemed fairly focused in his affection. Ultimately and with a heavy
heart I loaded him up in a large
cat carrier and drove him over to my friend Anna's house.
the fall butchering date for her She had agreed to keep him until
group of Delaware roosters. And I believe Buddy's destiny as dinner for Anna and her family
was an honorable one. I carried my favorite chicken to
his new home, a small coop set up for one big rooster.
Buddy looked about brave and
alert. As I set him free in his new
to form and began crowing that quarters he was absolutely true
brash cry of his. I am, I am, I am here, he seemed to shout.
Crowing from the other roosters ensued and Buddy strutted around
his new digs, apparently scouting this new environment
for any likely looking
rape or pillage victims. If good looks alone had been
success among the ladies, but apparently among chickens, enough, Buddy would have been a
As I petted Buddy goodbye and then drove out the driveway I'm pretty sure he didn't notice at all, but I hoped he wouldn't be
too unhappy in his new enforced life of celibacy. And I wondered if somewhere in
me. Anna said she would feed him his chicken brain he would miss
story and it's murder most fowl. grapes and speak to him kindly. Now there's a sad coda to this
It's inevitably dreadful tidings when a email or any other correspondence from a friend has
the word murder in the greeting or subject line.
Today my rooster's murdered Buddy. Here's what Anna had to say regarding some dark news.
I feel terrible. Strong winds must have blown the
door to his coop open, and it looks like he was jumped before he even had a chance to run.
our freezer, I'm very sad about what happened to him. Vicious chickens. EvSorry to share the sad news.r
So that's the story of Buddy. And the boon for Buddy was
the flock. benefit for Darrell who moved into the position of leader of
start talking a little bit. AI'm sure most of you haves chicken stories or someone has a the book, but maybe we could
If you'd like, I can read other things and we can kind of open chicken story.
it up for interaction right at this stage of the game.
So do any of you have chickens
or have chicken stories? >> Everybody is chicken.
Everybody is chicken. >> Everybody is chicken. >> What?
[LAUGHTER] Well, I can read some
stories about the hens also who have interesting personalities
if you'd be interested in that or we can do a little...
Oh, sure. >> Why don't you tell us
something about the predators. If someone were thinking about
this and they were in the city
but edge of country, what do you do? >> Well, it is one of the
responsibilities that you have
with chickens is to make certain that you have a very secure kind of coop.
And it's interesting, one of the
their coop. tBut they're also extremely chickens is that they do come back to roost every night in
vulnerable at night because they sleep totally soundly.
So if they're not protected,
during the day they are pretty clever resourceful birds and
coming around and they sound the they are alert about predators
alarm and they run for cover. But when they are sleeping, they are almost like in a coma and
when people want to catch a chicken, it's an easy thing at
So you do need to make certain night when they're on their roost.
that especially the coop where they roost is very secure.
clever at getting into And raccoons are particularly
everything. Possums are predators. Dogs.
Dogs will just chase chickens down more for sport than
anything else, but there are a lot of predators.
So it is important to make sure that the coop itself is very
One of the questions I've had is, I don't have chickens but people in my neighborhood do Yes?
Yes. and they have young children.
>> And I'm wondering how they are able, I've often wondered, what do they do?
Do they butcher these chickens
or do they just have to keep them forever because how are
kids that the chicken was killed they going to break it to the
for food which sounds very reasonable to an adult. >> Well, I think that there are
a couple of lines of thought
about this. Some people will say we have chickens as pets and they are
going to remain pets even when
chickens last about thea year and a half,al production. And the commercially raised
and that's the end for them. But chickens continue laying
eggs for quite a long time after
that but in a much more sporadic way and also the size of the
That's another reason that the eggs varies a lot.
commercial chickens, they need to lay on a very regular
a very uniform size of egg. So when you start having schedule and they need to lay
chickens that lay more erratically or larger eggs and
smaller eggs, that's when they
get rid of them commercially. But for a family, that's not such an important thing.
So they last as laying hens quite a lot longer. And if you've gotten them and you've talked to your kids about
them being pets, we had a rule
in our household that was called the we don't eat pets rule. And that worked out well
on our farm.
And we raised some steers and we said we have these steers,
are never hungry, they are never we feed them for a year, they
frightened, they are never thirsty, they have a good life, and we take good care of them.
They have excellent food. So we take care of them for a year, they take care of us for a
And I think that people who have year.
that attitude going into chickens can explain that to
I was very worried that our daughter was going to be so traumatized. kids.
or four-year-old and very sensitive and loved animals very dearly. She was a darling little three-
be bad the first night we had short ribs from one of the And I thought this is going to
and said is this his leg? It's very good. [LAUGHTER] And she picked up the bone
know, maybe I'm not doing a very good job with her So I thought, well, I don't
sensitivity training here. [LAUGHTER]
But anyway, I think that it's partly in the way that you
that are primarily your pets, you do have some responsibility and you tell that to your kids, tthen you say they lay eggs for
us for a couple years, three
years, and then we will care for them for a couple years,
That's the way to think about it. I think everybody has to work that particular equation out
themselves. Yes?
>> Have you discovered any chicken veterinarians?
Yes, as a matter of fact. And I will put in a plug for
Stephanie at Country View. It's interesting because you buy
birds for $5 a chick or something like that and then
as a veterinary specialty has not been the sort of thing that a lot of people have gone into. suBut apparently Stephanie hase
found that there are people now who have pet chickens who are bringing them in for various
or a broken leg or something sorts of things or a broken wing
like that. So anyway, she has become interested in chickens and has
learned that as a specialty.
But it's not a common thing. Most vets who specialize in chickens do large scale
commercial flocks.
They treat a flock for illness or they treat commercial birds, not pet chickens.
But with more pet chickens
there are likely to be more pet chicken veterinarians. Are there other questions?
What's the expected longevity for chickens? >> Well, they really do have a
them. Hawks, owls, possums, raccoons, dogs, cats go after the chicks. It just seems like there are so
many things that go after them. So a lot of them lead pretty
exciting lives and don't survive the predation, even in the city.
And I think that might be one of
the things that people also, it's not a good part of keeping chickens but it's an interesting
part of keeping chickens because
it does put you in touch with the natural world in a very, very direct way.
But I think that a chicken can
chickens as pets is a little bit live to be 8, 10, 12 years old. Most don't. And this whole thing of keeping
of a new phenomenon in our generation. Caroline?
I just met someone who has a
The bird was in quarantine for chicken they moved from California to Hawaii. She got her microchipped.
She told me her hen is 10 now. several months to make sure she didn't import any diseases they didn't have in Hawaii.
>> So that is a true pet chicken.
personalities. And they do have different
There are a couple of my hens that I really think are just smart and funny and absolutely
delightful. They're characters. I took one to a book event, and she was very, very well behaved
I have to say.
[LAUGHTER] She was friendly and cheerful and she went home and laid an egg.
I mean, I was a little bit worried.
know how this is going to affect I thought, oh, Zelda I don't
your adjustment to being a chicken after being at a book launch party, but she went home
and got right down to business. >> How are they in winter?
In Wisconsin you need to How do they deal with extreme cold?
choose a hardy breed. And that's one of the things that, you need to set up your
coop in such a way that you can keep it warm and protect the
birds. The birds with big combs are
going to tend to have those freeze. So you're better off with a bird
And the breed that I have the most of is the Buff Orpingtons, and there are Buff Orpingtons wiup on the roofb.
of the Children's Museum. I consider them very beautiful
birds. They're big golden birds, but
they are very fluffy and
well. they are vJulie?ll-suited to Wisconsin winters. And there are some others as
>> People are always concerned about the birds in the winter,
but they should really be concerned about them in the summer more because that's when,
air conditioning for the coop anytime soon. So if you want to be concerned we're not going to get
more concerned about the summer because there's nothing we can about the chickens you should be
good ways of cooling down. do to help them really. And they don't really have any
We gave our chickens a bath last week or two when it was really, really hot.
They loved that.
have found is that my chickens But otherwise they're fine in the winter. >> And the other thing that I
you hear all of these things absolutely love cool water in the summer. And they like, chickens really,
about dirty birds, chickens like clean water.
dirty or that's filled with junk They don't want water that is
or dirt at all. They like having clean water and in the summer they love it when
it's clean and when it's cool and they will really drink a
lot. And I think that that helps cool
them down a lot too.
Yes? And I make sure that my birds have shade as well because they do get very, very parched.
>> How often do birds lay eggs and what's the longevity
Well, they vary. of a chicken's life?
The chickens usually lay them, I think they say
I have a little black Silkie hen every 26 to 28 hours.
who lays more like every 22 to 23 hours. She is an over achiever
egg producer. But on the other end of the scale, she goes broody which
at the drop of a hat. So I'd say over the course of a whole year she doesn't produce means she tries to sit on eggs
rather be mother than produce a lot of eggs. that many eggs because she'd
But when she's producing eggs, boy, they're not very big but
there are a lot of them.
So that is the experience that I've had. It's pretty variable.
I have a rescue hen that's a
breed called an Americana. They're the ones that lay the gorgeous blue and green eggs.
And she lays less frequently but
she's a little bit older and she's also, in her life,
attack, and being carried around survived a possum attack, an owl
our yard but our daughter's very large standard poodle.
life. So she doesn't lay quite as many So she's had kind of an exciting
eggs as the other chickens but I give her a pass on that.
Yes?
>> Are chickens flightless or do their wings have to be clipped? >> Some are better fliers than
others. Whitman, the little black one,
fliers. In fact, Darrell flew out of the coop and onto our porch breeds that are pretty decent
had happened. We came and found a bunch of one night when something scary
feathers up in the yard and he was actually at the front door
with one of our dogs
who had gone out around 1:30, and at 2:30 there was this big noise and my husband went
downstairs and here was Darrell standing next to the dog, both of them at the front door
scary out there. going there's something
[LAUGHTER] And he apparently had no trouble
onto the porch. And Whitman actually has flown flying quite a distance down
up to the roof of our house, and we have one of those
old two story farm houses.
The other chickens, the Buff Orpingtons, they are terrible fliers.
They're really not, they can't
fly any distance at all. Although one of them did jump off the roof of the Children's
Museum. And if you go over there
wasn't exactly how it was portrayed in the newspaper. She wasn't trying to escape. >> She actually, the story
She was just trying to go out and explore. She is very smart.
But she got under the fence. She didn't fly over the fence.
She somehow got under the fence,
and this is when they were younger so they were smaller, and she actually flapped down
five stories and was completely fine on the sidewalk. Completely fine and I'm sure, I thought to myself that must be
the only time in human history
a chicken has flown down five stories. There should be some kind of
study about this. >> I think you should put a plaque on your coop that
history among chickens. >> Did that make the newspaper? >> Yes it did. kind of, she's made aeronautical
But anyway, the Buff Orpingtons are kind of big, ungainly birds and they're not good fliers. It did.
wings. So you don't have to clip their
And they're so good about coming And I don't really have the heart to clip Whitman's wings or Darrell's.
about them. I worry more about during the day if they would get out with I don't really worry too much
But I think that the flying, predators.
maybe having a little bit of loftability is probably a good
if there is a predator. Yes? thing with getting away
a huge mix, do they ever not >> Do the different breeds, and I know there's many, if you have
group of chickens, but I like another breed? >> I don't have that much experience with a real diverse
seem to have sort of common certainly interests. that the old saying birds of a feather tend to flock together, they do
It's by breed. And I would say that both
Whitman and Darrell, for
example, they are good fliers And they are very alert. They're a little more wound up
seeming birds.
The Buff Orpingtons, I always think of them as the Golden Retrievers of chickens.
They're very easy going, kind of
mild, friendly birds. And when I was introducing a young pullet that I have to an
adult bird, I took one of my
chicken because chickens can be Bufvery, very cruel with eachmy gentlest Buff Orpington to kind of get her used to this young
other. And it's not recommended to mix
groups of adult chickens because
you have to go out and you have you arto secure that cooplot of from predators? >> So every>> Yes.around dark
Yes, that's the last activity for us of the evening.
But it isn't a matter of going and catching the birds because
they've gone in to roost. Your chickens coming home to
roost, they do that on their own.
But it is something that's
important to do as far as making them secure for the night because they're very, very
vulnerable when they're roosting. Yes?
to have cockatiels, you don't want chronic egg laying because they get so depleted. >So I'm assuming that there'sn
special additions of vitamins and minerals to these diets so that they can lay
You get different kinds of without hurting their health?
rations at different stages of their lives.
and there is layer food, and There is a chick starter food
I am assuming that that's what that is, those things are for.
Yes, on the rooftop of the Do you know about that, Julie?
Children's Museum we have chickens as well as homing pigeons, and they just have a
totally different laying style. The chickens lay
eggs before they sit on them, whereas the homing pigeons, which are probably more like the They want to get like 12 or more
eggs and then sit on them for 21 days. cockatiels, only lay one or two
And I think chickens, that's why So they just have a totally different physiology.
we've had chickens for 10,000 years is because they lay like that and they have a different
physiology which allows them
to do that and they don't get depleted the same way that a cockatiel or a homing pigeon
does.
I was going to say we are at
that one o'clock time period. Amazing questions. Again, I selfishly schedule
these programs so I get to learn
something, a little bit more each time.
expert in the audience with all the chickens on the rooftop of Again, we've got a chicken
the Children's Museum. Julie will be giving out those
visitor passes as well as walking on over with those
chicken discussion. Susan, again, thank you so much whfor your knowledge and yournd vsharing of stories today.e
Well, thank you so much for coming. [APPLAUSE]