I live with three chickens; layer hens to use the barnyard parlance. I also live with a daughter teetering on the cliff edge of womanhood. The hens and the daughter, Emily, are a team. She understands and uses "hen speech" and is periodically found perched on the arm of the couch. The hens willingly stay in her arms for hours or are content to go on field trips to the woods with Emily as their guide. Frank Perdue is their common enemy.
Emily has researched chickens with the diligence of a scientist. She inspects their vents (the egg laying orifice), analyzes their excrement, records behavior, and has consumed what little material has been written about chickens. I like having Emily spend time with the "ladies." They are industrious, social, and take good care of themselves and each other. They will screech out a call that we have come to understand means "I've lost the other hens!" Emily then carries the lost hen to the others and all is quiet again. They seem to need the presence of one another even though most of their time is spent beak to ground looking for tasty grubs. They particularly enjoy physical contact with one another at night. When we close the coop door at dusk the hens are clumped together so that they resemble one very large hen. When one of the hens finds an especially nice patch of bare ground, just right for a dust a bath, we hear her call the others as if inviting them for a dip in her hot tub.
