Chickens and the Origins of Flight

Observing all the different uses our free-range chickens put their wings and feathers to has led this week to some speculation about how flight evolved. Chickens are particularly instructive in that they are not capable of full-fledged flight. They are, however, capable of wing-assisted hops--to reach the top of a fence, or to flutter upwards from branch to branch as they climb to their favorite roosting spot. And in the morning, when they descend, they use their wings to break their fall to the ground. Back when we were picking the chickens up and holding them, it was a delight, and convenient, to just toss them into the air and let them flutter softly down.

Their wings provide adjustable warmth, fluffed to varying degrees to match the cold of a particular night. That capacity to manipulate their feathers for warmth translates well to any micro-adjustments feathers make to optimize flight. As mentioned in a post describing a hawk attack, the strong quills of a chicken's wings also provide an incredibly light-weight, multi-layered armor, any portion of which can be shed so that a predator, thinking it has a firm grasp on the chicken, finds itself instead holding only a feather or two while the chicken escapes. That multilayered defense serves as well to shed the rain. Feathers also are mobilized for a powerful display, spreadable to make the chicken look bigger to potential predators, or more attractive to a potential mate.

After observing a chicken, flight can seem like an afterthought--a bit of serendipity that came to pass after wings and feathers gradually developed for a host of other purposes, each adaptive use enabling another in a positive feedback loop that ultimately led to the purity of flight.

Backyard Ducks

Life is pretty good for the backyard ducks these days. The miniponds are swelled by recent rains, and the ducks' owners have given them some quality frolic time out of the coop they share with the chickens.

Much as the chickens' showed us how much a backyard could be loved, with their infinite interest in the ground and the bugs and seeds it might hold, so the ducks have shown us what it means to really love water. Using their heads to toss water on their backs, diving, dipping or suddenly launching into a session of joyous thrashing, they revivify all those old expressions about ducks and water. It's easy to believe that they are fish at heart, who maintain wings and feet as backup options.

They don't so much drink water as maintain a current of water through their bodies. This makes them a bit messy in their cohabitation with chickens, which are by comparison much more land-based and clean.

Whereas chickens peck with precision, ducks gobble, especially the big, wobbly Pekin duck on the left, which sends food flying with its gourmandering.

The runner duck, by contrast, is a more graceful and delicate creature, holding its head high and steady like a ballet dancer as it walks. We had had good success with taking it for a walk in Herrontown Woods two months ago, so decided to try it again.

In the interim, however, the duck (Molly) had developed a mind of her own. Rather than following along with us, she immediately set off for the nearest creek.

 Fortunately, we found an abandoned dog leash on the trail, which helped keep the duck heading our way. Up at the Veblen farmstead, we walked by snowdrops planted either by Elizabeth Veblen or as part of a Garden Club of Princeton project some 40 years ago.

Hurricane Sandy has made lots of miniponds in the forest, where wild and somewhat tame life can stop and take a sip.

And so this unexpected life with ducks continues,

in ponds small and smaller

while bigger, bolder birds of a similar feather take up similarly unlikely residence in the broader Princeton landscape.

Lonely Chicken in Kingston

My younger daughter and I went to visit a lonely chicken in Kingston. Where once there had been six, a combination of coyotes, raccoons and a hawk had reduced their numbers to one--a Barred Rock named Queenie that finds solace in the company of humans, the neighbor's goats,

and an old horse whose messy eating habits leave lots of grain for the chicken to pick up afterwards.

According to the caretakers, the chicken produces 2 eggs a day, which sounds extraordinarily high. Our Aracanas each take three days to lay that number. I'm reminded of how stress in plants can trigger a surge in seed production, as if the plant is in a hurry to produce progeny in anticipation of its demise. Perhaps the combination of good care in a dangerous environment has stirred this Barred Rock to great feats.

The caretakers also said that before the attrition, the chickens would shift in pecking order, with rank often depending on which chicken was laying the most eggs. During molting, a chicken would lay fewer eggs and drop in the pecking order accordingly. I had thought that the pecking order was worked out quickly, after which chickens would live in peace.

The subject of pecking order came up because we were considering adopting the chicken, and were concerned that it would disrupt the harmonious chemistry of our current miniature flock of two. I'm told that the best way to add a new adult to a chicken coop is to wait until the resident chickens are roosting in the evening, and then add the newcomer. In the morning, the chickens will wake up the best of chums. We'll see if we get a chance to test this.

Soaking up the farm ambiance on the outskirts of Kingston, I heard tell of another wild visitor. The caretakers had seen wild pigs come out of the forest one day. Whether they were truly wild or simply escapees from a nearby farm is open to speculation. Wild pigs (not native) have been in the national news lately, for the ecological havoc they wreak, and also in the context of edible invasives, as in this "Malicious but Delicious" piece by NY Times columnist Frank Bruni, who was part of a food panel at the university recently.

Of course, it would have been nice to get a photo of the chicken itself, for this post, but the goats will have to do.

When a Coop Flew the Coop

The time came last week to move the chicken coop to the back of the property so that we could start beautifying the patio next to the house. The move came after months of careful planning and procrastination. The project was a good opportunity to use some of that used lumber scavenged from the local curbside kmart over the years. The chickens came over to check on progress, and to look for any grubs my large mammal activity might have stirred up.

Fortunately, the former owners had fashioned a platform of concrete blocks, used 50 years ago for a rabbit hutch.  We are simply carrying on an agrarian and can-do/do-it-yourself tradition established by the original owners. With serendipity as my co-pilot, I found that the pieces of the old coop could easily be unscrewed from each other and fit very well in the new location.

Even with serendipity, it took a couple days to make all the old coop parts fit together in a new configuration. It helped that the repurposed skylights didn't fall over and break, despite multiple close calls. Natural light is important in a coop, especially during winter when the chickens tend to stop laying if daylight isn't sufficient.

With most projects like this, there's a magical moment when the new space becomes real, when the end comes suddenly into sight, and all the hours spent feel worthwhile. Now all it needs is a few boards screwed over the openings, to keep any night predators out. With some interior decorating, what fowl could resist?

Well, the chickens and ducks were so habituated to the old coop that we had to carry them over to the new one each evening. After the third or fourth night, they finally bonded with the new coop and made the journey themselves. There's been a call for a coat of paint, though the weathered look has its charms.

Now, if we could only convince Buttons to lay in the coop, rather than hiding her eggs behind the hay pile. Sometimes we think one or another fowl has stopped laying, only to find a surprise somewhere in the yard after several weeks.

Teaching an Old Chicken Old Tricks

After a few years, chickens and ducks stop laying eggs. Our peking duck laid one egg per day like clockwork for several years, but stopped suddenly this past fall, even though she still waddles about the yard as robustly as ever. Our one hen remaining from the first batch, bought about four years ago, also stopped laying around the same time.

There followed then a lull of about a month, when we finally gave in and bought a dozen eggs at the grocery. Strange feeling after several years of home grown. Then, just as days were narrowing down to winter solstice, the three chickens we bought this past May came online, began their tour of beneficence, or however you'd like to describe the remarkable generosity that is a hen's nature. Though all are araucanas, one lays brown eggs, while the others lay variations on green and blue.

Then one day in late December a tiny egg appeared, as if a quail had happened by for a brief visit. Sometimes that can mean a chicken has just started laying. I wanted to believe the older white hen had found new inspiration. Hard to say, but if one looks closely enough at the greenish eggs, one can see three different shades, with one grayer, one bluer, and one just possibly from an old hen made newer.

Araucanas are sometimes called "easter egg" chickens, because of the varied colors of their eggs, and sometimes when the eggs aren't showing up in the usual spot in or near the coop, we do a good imitation of an Easter egg hunt searching for their new nest. I hear that Araucanas are also particularly resilient in cold weather. That will be tested this weekend, when temperatures are predicted to dip nearly to 0.

Terhune Orchards' "Turning 40" Tour

As I hurried to catch the start of a 40th anniversary tour of Terhune Orchards, surprised that I was actually on time, I passed a major showoff in the chicken coop. The white peacock was trying to impress the chickens, who were clearly more interested in the food.

As with the chickens, it's the food that's always impressed me about Terhune Orchards. No big show, just consistently great when it comes to taste and quality. No fancy facade, just keepin' it real. Cider, donuts, apples that just keep coming, and some 35 other crops to make the short drive out of town worthwhile. There's also the integration of business and community spirit, of which the chickens may not have paid much notice.

On this farm, utility is mixed with charm. History sits comfortably mingled with the modern in a multi-generational assemblage of "stuff".

Speaking of connections with the past, it turns out that the Terhunes, from whom the Mounts bought the farm 40 years ago, shared some common ancestors with Gary Mount, who had grown up on a farm in West Windsor next to Route 1. The Mounts learned of this only many years after the purchase.

I made it to the big barn in time for introductory remarks by three generations of Mounts. Two daughters and their families have returned to continue the tradition.

Solar panels on the big red barn, constructed by Amish woodworkers using the traditional oak pins instead of nails, supply 40% of the energy required to run the barn's climate control machinery.

Apples are stored in two different chambers. One is kept cold and humid, and keeps the apples fresh for several months. The other is for longterm storage. There, behind lock and key, the process of ripening and decay is stymied by dropping the oxygen level from 20% down to 2%. The oxygen is pushed out by injecting additional nitrogen into the room. Each month in the winter and spring, the door is opened, oxygen is allowed in so that workers can breathe, and a month's worth of apples are moved to the other chamber.

Outside, honey bees were pollinating the cherry blossoms. During the two weeks just before harvest, plastic is drawn over the hoops to protect the cherries from rain (and supposedly from the birds as well). Otherwise, the cherries will absorb the moisture and crack.

Apple trees are now planted much closer together than in the tradition configuration seen in the parking lot. Their trunks are so weak that they need to be staked, lest they fall over with a heavy load of apples, but the harvest is double what it used to be.

Pick your own asparagus. Ruth Stout, in her book from the 1940s called "How To Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back", described how gardeners used to dig a two foot deep trench to plant their asparagus in, then backfilled slowly as the asparagus grew. All that work, Stout contended, was unnecessary. Simply plant the asparagus at ground level. I didn't ask Gary Mount what his planting method is, but they make farming look so easy, I'm sure they don't seek out unnecessary work.

Some years back, one of their employees took an interest in greenhouse gardening, and the Mounts went with it. There are now three greenhouses, with one separated from the other tow, devoted to organic methods. Cloth is pulled over the space in winter, to provide at least a little insulation for this fuel-intensive space.

We got a tour of the bakery. It's surprisingly small, considering the output, not much larger than some expansive kitchens I've seen in private homes around town. The cider operation, too, is surprisingly compact. Apples that have slight blemishes or are too small for sale as apples are used to make cider. There's some thought put into blending different kinds. I asked why Terhune Orchard cider is so much richer in taste than other brands, and learned that most cider makers don't grow their own apples, but are supplied with small apples without much flavor. Stayman apples, not often used elsewhere, are also a particularly rich component of Terhune cider.

That accordion-like structure in the background, reminiscent of an Argentine bandoneon, is the cider press. I didn't ask whether the press plays tangoes while squeezing. The cider's then flash pasteurized, stored in big stainless steel containers designed for dairy operations, then jugged. The pulp is spread on fields using a manure spreader.

That was the tour. Gary headed out on a tractor to plant some corn. I headed back to town with donuts and asparagus, to catch some of Communiversity. Happy anniversary, Terhune Orchards! May there be 40 more.

2012: The Year We Got Chickens

I've been holding back on talking about some truly remarkable creatures that came into our lives this past year. When the pleadings of our 12 year old finally proved too much, I asked around about proper protocol for having chickens in town, and we went ahead and bought some chicks at a local farm supply store in May. Not having had any luck with keeping birds, or particular affection for chickens, I was not optimistic. And yet, over the summer and fall, they have worked their way into our hearts. Gentle, even huggable, imbued with personality and panache, generous in their provision of eggs, they are at the same time surprisingly independent, foraging for much of their diet on their own, living a quiet, unobtrusive life in the backyard.

The coop offered a chance to brush up on rusty carpentry skills and put to use materials scavenged from the curb.

With the entry of these charismatic creatures into our lives, the outdoors, specifically the backyard, began competing more successfully with all the diversions that tend to keep kids indoors.

This is a brief introduction. I'll post more, including more recent research on town poultry policy that made me feel comfortable about blogging on the subject.

Chickens at Princeton Day School

Many a happy hen resides next to the Princeton Day School gardens, across the Great Road from Coventry Farm. I visited them last week during the Bryn Mawr book sale,

where Princetonians were exhibiting flocking behavior in the PDS gymnasium, gleaning books to feed the mind, or at least to have a new lease on life on a new bookshelf.

The coop is located behind the playground next to the parking lot. I've been told that the kids love the chickens, which are used for educational purposes as well as food for the cafeteria. Only high schoolers are allowed to take care of them.

There are many versions of coop available at local farm supply stores like Rosedale Mills or Belle Meade Coop, though their price tag can sometimes motivate people to build their own. This coop's design has a very convenient door for collecting the eggs, and a tray underneath the inside roost, where most of the chicken droppings can easily be removed.

Early on, a fox found a hole in the caged portion and wiped out the whole flock. Though traumatic, the incident was used as an educational opportunity. Students came up with a better design for the chicken run.

Just past the chicken coop is an impressive retention basin where runoff--probably from the PDS parking lot--collects after a storm. Most developments in the Princeton area have these. Typically, such basins are mowed weekly, and the stormwater is allowed to run out so quickly it has no time to seep in. The result is a nearly useless expanse of turf.

At PDS, the basin is allowed to grow up as a meadow, then mowed once yearly. This is more attractive, easier to maintain, and makes better wildlife habitat. Unmowed vegetation has deeper root systems than turfgrass, which makes for a more porous soil that allows more runoff to percolate down to feed the groundwater. I don't know the story of Kristy Manning, for whom the meadow is named, but its a beautiful thing to have one's name attached to a well-maintained meadow that feeds both wildlife and the groundwater.

Food's already growing in the school garden nearby,

with spinach taking the lead.


PDS will host a conference on all of these installations May 4:   ECO-CONFERENCE Our Future, Our Challenge: Student Eco-Conference 2013 , May 4, 9-1p, at Princeton Day School. Includes talks by David Crane, CEO of NRG: "Are the economy and sustainability compatible?", and Heidi Cullen of Climate Central, plus workshops on foraging, chickens, bees, and organic farming

My discussions with Princeton's animal control officer and the mayor suggest that the public schools, in addition to their gardens, could also have chicken coops if there is sufficient parent and teacher interest.

Trotsky's Chickens

During a recent visit to Coyoacan, a historic neighborhood in southern Mexico City that once served as Cortez's home base, we passed by the long lines at Freda Kahlo's house and walked a few extra blocks to check out the walled-in house and courtyard of another historic figure, Leon Trotsky. The Russian revolutionary spent the last three years of his life in exile in Mexico, where he was granted asylum at the behest of Diego Rivera.

Turns out he raised chickens and rabbits, which he spent the first hour or so of every day caring for. The physical work and interaction with the animals "provided rest to his spirit and distracted him", but it also may have helped stimulate his thinking: "Sometimes he interrupted his labour to dictate a thought, an idea that had arrived to his mind while he was doing this work."

That connection between hand and mind, manual work and intellect, is one of the rewards of not outsourcing all manual work, and exploring which aspects of lifestyle are worth adopting from past eras when machines were less ubiquitous.

Raising chickens and rabbits may also have helped him survive increasing seclusion, given that the danger of attack by an agent of Stalin made any venturing outside the walls of his compound risky. His falling out with Stalin led to his exile, and the assassination of nearly all of his family members, including finally himself when a Stalin agent penetrated Trotsky's inner circle in 1940.

Trotsky was also in to cacti, which he had dug up from surrounding hillsides that surely have long since been engulfed by urban growth.

Afterwards, we waited out the lines at Freda Kahlo's house, and found therein, tinged with rant, her expression of connection with people who use their hands to make a living.

Hawks and Hummingbirds

When a red-tailed hawk flew into the neighbor's spruce tree the other day, the good news for the chickens and ducks was that I happened to be outside at the time. Last fall, after the leaves had fallen, we lost a chicken to a Coopers hawk in very traumatic fashion. The day following the attack by the Coopers hawk, I found a big red-tailed hawk perched above the coop in the early morning, as if it were a customer waiting to be served breakfast. The word was out about our tasty pets. It looked like the backyard would be under siege for the duration, requiring that the chickens live the rest of their days in the protective enclosure of the coop. Instead, the hawks stopped coming, and we gradually returned to the liberal and very convenient routine of letting the chickens out in the morning, to forage freely for insects and worms in our fenced-in yard until dusk.

Why this latest hawk flew into the dense branches of the spruce tree isn't clear, but the local hummingbird was not at all pleased. It flew straight towards the hawk, like a tiny missile, stopping three feet from the evergreen tree, hovering, then returning to another tree to perch. I imagined the hawk munching on hummingbird eggs, but it seemed late in the season to be raising another brood. After a few minutes, the hawk shifted to a nearby oak, posed for a photo, endured more harassment from small birds, and then flew off.

Since then, the hawk has not returned, perhaps intimidated either by my presence or the more constant backyard presence of the big white Pekin duck, which seems clumsy and a little silly to us, but may in size and occasional deep quack give the hawk pause. The hummingbird, too, has disappeared, but that may only be because I'm actually looking for it. Far better to be preoccupied with some task, and let the corner of the eye catch flashes of all the winged visitors.

Volcanoes on Harrison Street

The landscape service for the house two doors down gave the street tree maple a little love. Tucked it in like you might tuck a child into bed. All nice and snug with some mulch around its trunk.

Looks so right, and yet everyone knows it's the wrong thing to do--everyone except the workers charged with taking care of people's yards. It just goes to show, once again, how much land is left in the hands of people who don't know anything about plants. Cut the grass, trim the hedge, spread the mulch--what more could there be to know? It's like dispensing with doctors and nurses, and turning the medical profession over to barbers.

Now, I actually feel a lot of sympathy for the guys who are charged with going out there and mowing grass all day. Grass is a hippy after all. It wants to grow its hair long and make love in the sunshine. Keeping all those proclivities in check is a major production. I put in my time, mowing yards as a kid, and then a brief stint as a groundskeeper at a golf course, perched on a tractor, pulling the gang mowers up and down the fairways. I love the smell of fresh-cut grass, and spent much of my youth playing one grass-tread sport or another, or just feeling the joy of running full tilt across a field of green. Summer evenings we'd have pickup games. When it got too dark to see the softball, we'd switch to soccer--the ball being bigger--and play some more, then find our ways home in the pitch black, by distant glimmers of light and instinct, as if navigating across constellations.

But all those memories are far removed from current realities, where so many lawns are neither used nor taken care of by the inhabitants of the house, and essentially serve as obligatory, sterile frames for the buildings they surround, their tidiness enforced by roving crews wielding pesticides, whirling steel, and raucous leaf blowers. So many barren hours spent tending to barren landscapes. At least it's an outdoor activity.

Suburbia tells us we must have yards, but what are they for exactly? It can get pretty existential. Native plants is one answer, for me at least. Give them a place to grow and show off their stuff. And chickens. Chickens know what to do with a yard, examining every little speck to see if it's food. They have no existential quandaries to grapple with.

So, really, I don't get too worked up over mulch volcanoes. It just seems way too easy. True, they are annoying, but they are only the pesky peak perched atop an implacable mountain of convention and indifference. Nature is often counter-intuitive. It takes awhile to get to know. Trees don't like to be hugged by mulch.

In this case, it was easy enough to pull the mulch back from the bark and be on my way. If only the underlying problem were as easy to fix.

A Duck Gets a Taste of Spring

Our Pekin duck has been finding more reason to venture out of the coop this week. There's mud to probe with its beak, and the luxury of a bath in one of our backyard ponds swelled by snowmelt from neighbors' yards. She had no problem breaking through the thin layer of ice left by last night's freeze.

Earlier in the month, finding water in its liquid state was more of a challenge, as she took sips from the fillable-spillable minipond catching water from the roof.

She keeps a sharp eye out for hawks, turning her head to get a better look at the sky. Usually, that turn of the head means something's flying over, be it a vulture, crow, hawk, or a jet headed into Newark Airport.

Meanwhile, the duck's companion, a chicken of similar feather, was laying another robin's-egg-blue egg. We often get two a day now, as warmer temperatures and longer days have broken the winter drought.

Ducks and chickens made multiple appearances in movies this weekend at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival, particularly in the excellent documentary on permaculture, "Inhabit". The ducks were said to be excellent at keeping the slug population down on an outdoor shitake mushroom farm, and the chickens happily batted cleanup in one of the crop rotations, eating any seeds that eluded harvest.