Why DID the Chicken Cross the Road???

KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other
side.

PLATO: For the greater good.

ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability.

TIMOTHY LEARY: Because that's the only trip the establishment would let it take.

SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

JACK NICHOLSON: 'cause it f___ing wanted to. That's the f___ing reason.

RONALD REAGAN: I forget.

KATHERINE ALVAREZ: To get away from my neighbor.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

JOHN McCAIN: The chicken was a maverick, just like me. She did it for the greater good because she was serving the people, just like me. Sarah Palin crossed the road too...

SARAH PALIN: She did it for her family.

HIPPOCRATES: Because of an excess of phlegm in its pancreas.

LOUIS FARRAKHAN: The road, you see, represents the black man. The chicken 'crossed' the black man in order to trample him and keep him down.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives being called into question.

MOSES: And God came down from the Heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing.

FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did NOT cross the road.

MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

JERRY SEINFELD: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn't anyone ever think to ask, What the heck was this chicken doing walking around all over the place, anyway?"

FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

BILL GATES: I have just released the new Chicken Office 2000, which
will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook.

OLIVER STONE: The question is not, "Why did the chicken cross the
road?" Rather, it is, "Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?"

DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally
selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

BUDDHA: Asking this question denies your own chicken nature.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON: The chicken did not cross the road .. it transcended it.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain.

COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one?

ARTHUR ANDERSEN CONSULTANT: Deregulation of the chicken's side of the road was threatening its dominant market position. The chicken was faced with significant challenges to create and develop the competencies required for the newly competitive market. Andersen Consulting, in a partnering relationship with the client, helped the chicken by rethinking its physical distribution strategy and implementation processes. Using the Poultry Integration Model (PIM),
Andersen helped the chicken use its skills, methodologies, knowledge, capital and experiences to align the chicken's people, processes and technology in support of its overall strategy within a Program Management framework. Andersen Consulting convened a diverse cross-spectrum of road analysts and best chickens along with Anderson consultants with deep skills in the transportation industry to engage in a two-day itinerary of meetings in order to leverage their personal knowledge capital, both tacit and explicit, and to enable them to synergize with each other in order to achieve the implicit goals of delivering and successfully architecting and implementing an enterprise-wide value framework across the continuum of poultry cross-median processes. The meeting was held in a park-like setting, enabling and creating an impactful environment which was strategically based, industry-focused, and built upon a consistent, clear, and unified market message and aligned with the chicken's mission, vision, and core values. This was conducive towards the creation of a total business integration solution. Andersen Consulting helped the chicken change to become more successful.

One Year Later - City Doing Great With Chickens

"So Antoinette, I just read a followup article about a city that created a backyard chicken ordinance a year ago. Apparently everything has worked out fine for them. WE should be so lucky! Are you nervous about the meeting tonight???" Yes, it's true. Just under a year ago, the city of South Portland, Maine created an ordinance allowing 6 hens per residence on relatively small lots and they have had absolutely NO PROBLEMS as a result. http://www.theforecaster.net/story.php?storyid=15608

14 permits have been issued. I believe this is a good illustration of the fact that just because it's recognized as legal, doesn't mean everyone will do it.

Sewanee's Community Council meeting is in an hour. I hope that we too will serve as a great example of a community who, like South Portland, "think for themselves" and "most certainly live their values".

Box Turtles and "Underground Chickens"

Antoinette learns that turtles lay eggs too!As a gardener, I've had the privilege of watching a box turtle lay eggs in my flower bed twice. The most recent time was this summer. Even though I mark my calendar, I have yet to see the eggs hatch. While reading up on our local turtles, I learned that they want to stay within the same area where they were born. If one is moved more than a half-mile from its territory, it may never find its way back; but may spend years unsystematically searching. I feel TERRIBLE! When I used to see one on the side of the road, I would bring it home to show my children and then let it go in the yard. Now I understand why I don't have a yard full of turtles - they all set out trying to find their way back to the Jump Off Road! Over the span of their lifetime, female turtles will lay hundreds of eggs, but only 2-3 of these offspring will survive to adulthood. Wow. Who knew.

Today a recent graduate of the university came to visit me. He'd just returned from his 3rd summer helping people in a developing country and will go on to graduate school in Europe soon. He was a merit scholar, athlete, volunteer and all around great guy. Unfortunately he never expressed interest in marrying one of my daughters. He's been following the Sewanee chicken story and came to tell me about his mother's "underground chickens".

Apparently it's not exactly legal to keep them where he grew up. Nevertheless, his mother got four and her neighbor got two. The chickens wandered happily between the yards visiting - as chickens will do. I guess they wandered too far one day and someone complained. An official from the city was sent to deal with the problem. The chicken mothers said they would fence the birds in, but the official said he could not leave unless they promised to get rid of the hens. He didn't seem concerned with whether they actually removed them - just that they said they would. So, (these were very smart women) they said they would, fenced in the chickens and lived happily ever after.

Who DOESN'T have chickens???

Here's a link to a "stealth chicken coop" designed to look like a trash can. http://henspa.com/hencondo.htm

Silkies Make Great Pets

Natasha departing the porch of the original chicken house.

Natasha as a young lady in at rare quick paceNatasha was a "silkie". A silkie's feathers don't bind together like regular feathers, they're sort of frayed and therefore fur-like. They are very soft like a kitten, small, have pom poms on their heads, fuzzy feet and lay cute silly little eggs. They can't fly because their feathers don't work and they really can hardly see with all that fur on their face. She reminded me of a Russian princess so I contacted my favorite Russian professor and asked for name suggestions. Natasha (actually named for a Countess rather than a Princess) was very happy and very sweet, but I thought she was a little dumb until I trimmed around her face - exposing her eyes - and with sight, she became noticeably less ditsy! She was always the most vulnerable and one day when I had her out of her cage, I came home to find a hawk eating her.

Word spread quickly among my friends. People would walk cautiously up to me and express their condolences. I even received a very sappy sympathy card in the mail.

Yes, it was very sad, but the life of a chicken mother is not always as carefree as it appears. To appease my guilt I decided that it's better to have a short happy life than a long miserable one and I was glad I allowed her to take the dust baths in my garden that she so loved and were ultimately her demise.

Chicken Personalitites and Advantages

Antoinette - poking around by her old house Chickens can be quite eccentric. When I upgraded my hens from their white trash house to the cute cottage where they now reside, they were not at all appreciative - even though construction only went a week over and came in a mere 10% over budget...

I built them a nesting box in which to lay their eggs, but they flat out refused. They would sit in that house all day crossing their legs and when I came home to let them out - run to the garden and lay under the lillies.

I'm smarter than a chicken.

One day I took an egg from under the lillies and put it in the nesting box in their house hoping to encourage them to lay where they're supposed to. The next morning I found Antoinette and Elisa rolling the egg out of the nesting box with their beaks.

So I put 2 eggs in there and the next day they were repositioned also.

The girls still won't lay in the box, but at least now they keep the eggs in the house to humor me.

Advantages to raising Chickens

Chickens have individual personalities just like dogs and cats. They can be very loyal and are more often than not - VERY amusing. I've heard many, many stories in the past couple of weeks, ranging from a chicken in Charlotte who goes to visit nursing homes, to chickens that go on outings with their owners just like dogs. (Imagine the Sewanee bank giving out corn kernels at the drive through in addition to lollipops and dog biscuits!)

Unlike typical pets, chickens have three distinct advantages :

eggs - I covered the benefits of fresh pastured chicken eggs in previous posts.

fertilizer - there appear to be many uses, "Man builds giant chicken manure catapult to battle vandals" http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/19/man-builds-giant-chi.html.

A more conventional application - according to the University of Florida IFAS Extension,
"Animal manures have been used effectively as fertilizers for centuries. Poultry manure has long been recognized as perhaps the most desirable of these natural fertilizers because of its high nitrogen content." http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/AA205. Chickens wandering around your yard will fertilize as they go. Their coop will also be a wealth of fertilizer once composted. Some people house their birds in a chicken "tractor" which can be moved around the yard to fertilize different areas.

pest control - chickens love to eat bugs - ticks, mosquitoes, fleas, grubs, aphids, slugs, snails, grasshoppers.... in all stages - eggs, larvae, adults.

An unexpected advantage for me - I've cut back considerably on the use of nonorganic products in my yard because I don't want to harm the chickens.

The honey bees said, "thank you!".

Bird Flu

Casey and baby bird Baby bird perching on chicken house door

Casey and her new best friend
My daughter has a very petite "faux Siamese" cat named Casey. Casey likes to think she's the great hunter, but she rarely harms butterflies (when she's able to catch them). This spring Casey came trotting around the corner with a baby bird in her mouth. I was quite impressed with her stealthy skills, although sorry it was a baby bird and not a MOLE (or a deer, for that matter). Still, it's the "circle of life" or whatever and she was doing what cats are supposed to be programmed to do.

A while later I noticed Casey coming out of the chicken house. When I peeked in, I found the baby bird laying there unharmed. Casey had put the bird in the bird house where she thought it belonged! Good Kitty.

More Chicken Facts - Bird Flu

According to the TN Department of Agriculture, "Since 1924, there have been three incidences of highly pathogenic bird flu in the United States in domestic poultry. There were no human illnesses reported in connection with these outbreaks, the most recent outbreak in 2004 was confined to one flock and quickly eradicated. " http://tennessee.gov/agriculture/regulate/animals/birdflu.html

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC)

"We have a small flock of chickens. Is it safe to keep them?
Answer
Yes. In the United States there is no need at present to remove a flock of chickens because of concerns regarding avian influenza. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) monitors potential infection of poultry and poultry products by avian influenza viruses and other infectious disease agents." http://www.pandemicflu.gov/faq/bird/1098.html

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Avian influenza is not transmitted through cooked food. To date, no evidence indicates that anyone has become infected following the consumption of properly cooked poultry or poultry products, even when these foods were contaminated with the H5N1 virus.
Does the virus spread easily from birds to humans?
No. Though more than 100 human cases have occurred in the *current outbreak, this is a small number compared with the huge number of birds affected and the numerous associated opportunities for human exposure, especially in areas where backyard flocks are common. It is not presently understood why some people, and not others, become infected following similar exposures."

* Current outbreak refers to Asia, there is no evidence of Avian Influenza in the U.S. http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/avian_faqs/en/index.html#consequences

While there is no need for concern over bird flu in backyard chickens in the United States, there is cause for awareness, common sense and taking precautions. As with any animal, sanitary practices are imperative for many reasons (common sense). Knowing your animals and noticing of signs of illness - again, common sense. Bottom line - if you are sensible, you should be allowed to have backyard chickens.

EMERGENCY!!!

Christmas card 2006
Elizabeth, holding Casey, the almost Siamese.
Me, holding Gertrude, my other hen turned rooster.
Lauren, holding nothing.

Remember my chickens? I'll refresh your memory. 2 older chickens and 3 youngsters. Out of the 3 little ones, I knew Guinevere and Francesca were boys although they had not yet crowed, so I would only be able to keep Chloe - the little blond. The new home for the boys was not ready and they had such great personalities that I was in no hurry to see them go, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

I came home from work yesterday and let the birds out as usual. I started cleaning my house in anticipation of weekend guests and a "decorate for the parade" party the following night - when I heard, "peep, peep, peep, EERRAAACK!!" I burst outside crying, "What are you doing????!!!" Guinevere had picked yesterday afternoon to give crowing a try. When a rooster first crows it's much like a boy's voice cracking as he becomes a man. And once a rooster experiences his first crow he wants to keep practicing!

So here I've spent the last week telling the world that backyard chickens are less intrusive than many typical pets and now, of all times, my little girl starts to crow. I grabbed him and put him in the house, put a cage in the car, grabbed the other potential crower and put him in the house. What to do...what to do... I called their new owner & left a message. "I have to move my roosters out NOW. Call me back." I got them in the car and was plotting their escape when I heard Chloe freaking out in the back yard. She is not capable of being very loud, but she was giving it her best shot. The 3 little birds were a team, and Chloe, as the most vulnerable, depended on the 2 guys. All the while, Guinevere was in my car practicing his new found voice. I put another cage in the car and went to get Chloe - which was not as easy as anticipated given the chaos.

OK, finally (it actually all happened in less than 15 minutes) I was on the road, top down, dust from the cages flying, chickens ruffled, me on my phone calling for back up.

"Sanford, I have an emergency!"
Brief pause.
"Guinevere Crowed! I have to get her out of my yard ASAP!"

"Do you have a cage?", "Ok, you can bring them out."
"Good, thing - I'm already on my way..."

I sang to the birds on the way there to calm them down - just as I used to do with my children when they were little girls.

I have some great friends who live on a large tract of protected land a few miles outside of town. They are committed to living a quiet, sustainable life and at least two of them raise chickens. I knew somebody would take mine in for a few days until they could movefrom the "safe house" into their permanent home. (Perhaps it will be necessary to change their names for their protection.)

Sanford's chickens are regular chicken size and his rooster is quite a big boy. He's just beautiful - proud and regal with long graceful tail feathers. As I've mentioned before, my little ornamental birds can't be readily mixed in with a new flock. So we set my cage of 3 in Sanford's yard and his birds came around to check them out. My little guys were VERY excited! Nothing like visit to the country!

As dusk came and his chickens started going into their house for the night, it was time for Chloe and I to go home too. We said our good byes and pulled away.

The next morning Sanford called and said Guinevere and Francesca were doing great. They were very happy, ate out of his hand and the big rooster was hanging out with them showing them the ropes. They were still in their cage, but happy as could be.

Back home things were not so good. Antoinette was causing quite a ruckus. She was clucking around like she actually missed the little boys. Chloe, as usual, was confused. I ended up having to put Antoinette in my kitchen. Can't have these chickens clucking up the neighborhood - especially after I've promised they're quiet! This evening things had settled down considerably. A couple of things I have learned about chickens - they're much smarted than I could have guessed, but they have SHORT TERM MEMORIES!