Mona's Spring Break

Last week was Spring Break here. It felt more like summer, though, with the temperature up to 95 degrees. When chickens are stressed a little, they quit laying. Changes in weather can do this, so when we saw a little reduction in our egg production, I thought maybe it was the weather. To get ready for Mark’s highly-anticipated Spring Break party and do a little spring cleaning, we put Mark in charge of power washing the back patio so we could move his weight rack outside. For three days the loud buzzing of the power washer droned on (when he wasn’t “taking a break”) and the chickens were not happy. They moved their base of operation around the back of the coop, in the Outback, as we call it. Not a comfortable spot for chicken feet, rocks and warm pavement and all. Mona quit laying. Baby took a few days off, too. On the day of the party, a dozen 15 year-old boys arrived early to start the party. They zip lined over the pool. They threw each other into the pool and beat each other with pool noodles. They were loud, and their pool toys flew over the chicken yard fence.

“Chickens don’t like spring break. No eggs today,” we said.

Then the girls arrived, and the party moved to the hot tub. The chickens tiptoed along the side of their coop, like burglers, one at a time, hoping to go unnoticed. The girls squealed, “Chickens!” The hens waited until after dark – unheard of for a chicken, to go to bed. The following day it was business as usual in the chicken yard. It was a breezy day and all the noise was gone. Baby laid an egg. Mona seemed to be on strike. I read about a woman who gives her chickens milk in the afternoon to provide them with calcium. We gave them a pie pan of milk and the chickens didn’t know what to make of it. A completely white dish. Where’s the food? The meal worms? What are we looking for? They circled the pan nervously, so we added some layer. Ah, there’s the food – and with that, they became milk lovers. They all pecked at the layer and then tilted their head back and drank the cool milk. “This will surely get Mona back on schedule,” I said. But no egg. My sister Joyce told me that horses are afraid of two things; things that move and things that don’t. Chickens are afraid of everything, but like horses, they don’t like change unless it is their idea. I started thinking about why Mona was not laying. Maybe it was because we haven’t changed the hay in the roosting boxes. Now that the Lizard Twins have been taught not to roost in there, we don’t need to change it very often. Maybe Mona needs fresh hay? I walked around the Outback to the tarp where we keep our bale and lifted the corner. There were three Mona eggs. Mona hadn’t been on strike. She had just left home for a few days. She was on Spring Break.

Meet Mona. Mona moans.

Each of our hens has a unique personality. From the day we brought her and the other buff and black chickens home in a cardboard box, Mona was different.

We read in children’s books what sounds animals make. Some storytellers get it right. Some dogs really do sound like a woof! Some cats have been caught on film saying “I love you” and singing “Rock a bye, baby” but many do put out a meow. Birds tweet most of the time and now, so do millions of humans. Chickens do not say cluck cluck.

We can’t say what the NORM is for our chickens; each is unique, but Mona moans. It’s more like a scolding nag while jogging. One might interpret is as,
“Where-have-you-been-I-could-have-fainted-waiting-for-this-treat.” Sometimes she sounds like a car transmission going out, other times just the starter turning over.

Mona tells us if she’s laid an egg, if anyone else has laid an egg, how late we are to feed, how desperate she is for attention, if it’s hot out, cold or windy, and that another chicken got more at dinner than she did. But she does not cluck. She’s a moaner. She is so loud that I am afraid our neighbors will secretly throw a mean tomcat into the yard.

I wanted to return her but we would have only had two chickens, and even numbers in the chicken coop are not good. (Please refer to the intro blog.) She is so needy that she rushes the human leg in the coop and does the best cat impression I’ve ever seen—when the cat keeps you from taking a step. Realizing that she doesn’t know which way we are going to step, she stops. Hunkers down. We started reaching down and patting her. Pat, pat, moan. Pat, pat, moan. I think we’ve trained her that if she gets down, we’ll scratch her neck and pat her. Other hens look at her, then cock their head up and look at us, then down again. They wonder what in the world is wrong with her.

There’s one more thing. Her crown doesn’t stand up, it flops over to one side, making her look a little disheveled. A loud, needy, clumsy, busybody on a bad hair day. She would use a cell phone in a crowded waiting room and have 22 grocery items in the express line. But she has a good heart, she was tolerant of the younger additions when they moved in, she’s a good companion to her sisters, she’s a hard worker (she lays an egg almost every day) and she stops whatever she is doing to say hello.

And in this world you don't often find these attributes.