Chickens are a lot like people

We know spring is coming even if the weather isn’t cooperating because the chickens are laying eggs like crazy! We currently house about 40 chickens here at Goebel Hill Farm.  Truly….we house them.  The chickens are spoiled.  From the day they hatch until the day they die of old age, we provide them with room, board and protection.  A few of the ladies are over nine years old!   In return for the housing, the chickens give us eggs, fertilizer and entertainment.    Our first 25 chicks came in the mail from the good people at Sand Hill Preservation Center  in Calamus, Iowa.  Sand Hill’s mission is “genetic preservation of the diversity of this planet we all call home”.  We are all in with that at Goebel Hill Farm.

Over the years, we’ve learned that chickens are a lot like people.  The roosters tirelessly compete with each other to be top dog. They flirt with the hens and strut their stuff around the yard; plying the hens with gifts and treats.  If we don’t intervene, they will fight to the death over the ladies.  There are mean girls in the coop, hens who form clicks and gang up on the less confident hens, pecking them hard on the head if they get too close. After you raise chickens for awhile you learn where all of those idioms come from such as having a “hen party”, being “hen pecked” or acting like a “mother hen”.  All true!

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