One night, my husband Paul came into the house to report that one of our chickens, Nellie, was in the nest box rather than on the roost.
Chickens generally sleep up high; in our case, a perch that extends along the length of their coop, just under the roof. The last time one of chickens had taken to sleeping in the nest box, she was ill, and subsequently died. So Paul was naturally nervous about Nellie’s behavior.
She had appeared fine all day, he related. Paul really wanted to move her out of the box and onto the roost, but he couldn’t do it alone without risking a chicken escape. And I couldn’t help him because I was still incapacitated by foot surgery.
He had to sit and stew, and pretend to watch a repeat of “The Big Bang Theory.” Then, Paul had a revelation. Dusk was coming earlier every day, as it does each fall. He had to adapt his “locking up the coop time” accordingly. That evening, he’d gone out a bit too early. Nellie had come out of the coop to see if he was bringing bedtime snacks. Paul couldn’t lock the coop until Nellie returned to it, so he came back into the house. Nellie eventually did the same, going back to her digs. But chickens don’t see well in the dark. If she couldn’t see the roost, she’d naturally settle in the nest box.
Well, that made sense!
Often, our domesticated animal friends are smarter than we think. I enjoy observing their behavior, as long as it doesn’t indicate they’re planning to overtake the house.
Take our cat, Annie. She is a ball of gray fur, unassuming, the sweetest cat you’ll ever meet. But when I take out a mug, fill it with water, and head for the Keurig machine, she lets out a lusty wail. Annie jumps on the breakfast bar and begins pacing. Why? Because she knows that I am making a cup of coffee. When the coffee is done, I’ll take out the cream and put some into the mug. Annie wants to make sure she is going to get some of that cream.
Of course, I’m reasonably sure she is not thinking “coffee equals cream,” but it is obvious that she recognizes a chain of events that is going to end in an activity that could—should!—benefit her.
Our chocolate lab, Quinn, only has to be shown a new behavior twice before he adapts to it. That attribute has its own pros and cons. My husband, Paul, wanted Quinn to respond to a curl of his finger when Paul was ready to take him out for the last walk of the night. That was a good thing. However, if we give Quinn and his sister, Martha, a “bonus” treat at the same time two days in a row—we are stuck doing it for the foreseeable future.
After a month-long hiatus, Nellie the chicken appeared in the nest box again the other night. Although I was back on my feet by then, I refused to go and move her because it was raining like the dickens and I had woken up that day with a sore throat. This left Paul to do some research on the Internet, where he learned that many chickens decide they like to sleep in the nest box, and it’s really not necessarily a sign of illness.
When she did it again the following night, I agreed to move her. This was an interesting experience. Nellie was warm and drowsy. As I lifted her over the roost, she didn’t immediately lower her “landing gear.” I had to hang on to her for a couple moments until she placed her feet on the dowel.
Later that night, I was the one who had the revelation. Our other two chickens, Hope and Snow, were molting. Their annual feather fall-out meant they weren’t laying. Nellie was the only one using the nest box to lay eggs. She probably was doing some occupying—literally developing squatter’s rights.
Annie the cat has a couple other interesting habits. She can catch treats in her paws. Every night after dinner, I go through a routine of commands with the dogs (we call it “school”) and then throw tiny treats for the cats to scamper after. They love it. Clara’s territory is the downstairs bathroom, while Teddy prowls the landing above the stairway that leads to the addition we call “the ell.” Leo is at the bottom of the stairs. Annie has the kitchen, but she doesn’t often have to move from her post. Clever, she is.
Annie was also the first to notice that I set aside small pieces of treats. Now, after the official playtime, we have to have a “treasure hunt” of all the minuscule broken pieces I didn’t think fit to throw.
Every once in a while, our feathered and furry friends seem to act just like animals. Paul and I often find one chicken sitting on top of another in the nest box. Sometimes, one chicken is honking like a goose while the nest box is occupied by another one. Why? There’s one small nest box and one long nest box. They only use the small one, and get frantic if it’s already in use, even though there is another one available.
I hypothesized that the big box might be too spacious. The small one was cozy. So Paul partitioned the unused nest box into two sections. The ladies checked it out, but rejected it.
At first I thought, “Well, chickens. They like predictability. They don’t want a lot of variety in their lives.”
But wait a minute. Isn’t that just like people who resist change? They will continue doing things that don’t really benefit them, just because they fear anything different. Hmmm…they’re chicken!
And chickens are a lot more like humans than we’d like to think.
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