A Chicken Named Trouble

All our laying hens, 11 of them, are named Charlotte. Just this week Lillian and I decided that one, the hen who is a beautiful silvery white, should be called Trouble. She is the one who built a nest on the compost pile and horded 11 eggs. She is sometimes missing and then magically returns. I have seen her on several occasions slipping through a very small gap between the electric poultry netting and the barn. Lately, with the bitter cold temperatures, she is often missing in the evening and mysteriously reappears in the AM. Over the past day and a half she had not been seen and we were sure that she had been eaten or fhad froze to death. We knew her disappearing act was probably due to a new secret nest. We had come to terms with her overwhelming need to wander and brood and knew her fate was in her own hands. We have searched in the daylight and in the dark for any sign of her and had no leads as to where she was and where she was nesting--until tonight.

I asked Paco to put a heat lamp up in the barn for the hens because the nights have been brutal. He had to walk out to the lean-to in the back pasture, quite a distance from the barn, to get the heat lamp. Back in the farthest corner of the lean-to, behind a large feed crock that blocked the wind, was Trouble resolutely sitting on a nest she had fashioned out of hay. She was alive. This hiding place is quite a ways form the protection of the barn, and surrounded by rail fence. She has had to brave the weather, 3 dogs, and a long commute to get from barn to nest. Woods surround the len-to where she was nesting and our yard is frequently visited by predators.

Paco and I decided that she should be moved, by force, back to the barn. I admire her determination and respect her yearning for motherhood, as well as her surprising bravery and intelligence. She would clearly die if left on her nest. Honestly, it's a miracle she has not frozen to death or become someone's dinner.

The stall in the barn we use as a hen house joins with another stall, via a sliding window. So, we moved Trouble (she had to be forced off the nest), her 16 eggs, and hay for a new nest into the adjoining stall. This way she can still have a semi-private place to set on her eggs as well as warmth and access to food and water. Sadly, Trouble has no boyfriend on our farm and her eggs will never hatch, but we have promised her if she can make it through the winter we will get her a man and she can brood as many baby chicks as her heart desires. My own long and heartbreaking journey to motherhood makes me especially proud of and sensitive to Trouble's determination. She is one hell of a chicken. It was 12 degrees last night. She sat on those eggs, without access to food or water. She found the safest and warmest place she could outside the barn, and she has worked for weeks to build a nest of 16 perfect, yet unfertilized, eggs.

I am so glad we found her alive, but sad that we messed with her plans. I hope that she will like the nest where it is and her wanderlust is satiated for the time being.