Blog: North Shore chicken invasion

After months of talking about someday getting a few chickens, we finally went for it and got four hens.

Chickens Little, a small family business in Wahiawa, set up a booth at the Haleiwa Farmers Market and offered a wide variety of chickens. This is where we got Henrietta, a Black-tailed Buff Japanese Bantam; Penelope, a Black-tailed White Japanese Bantam; and Georgetta and Flapjack, Light Brahma Bantams. We brought them home and immediately constructed a cozy coop out of scrap wood, complete with four nesting boxes for each hen. My home has turned into a chicken crazed house—and we’re not the only ones.

It turns out there are numerous chicken-focused websites where chicken lovers post chicken-related questions, get lots of answers, and share their favorite chicken stories. People with as many as 40 chickens have names for each one and can describe each bird’s temperament and personality. One website user’s signature went somethng like: “Jan, mother of 4 silkie bantams, 8 australorps ...” and then went on to name each one.

Now that my boyfriend is participating in online chicken chats at night instead of watching TV, I am hearing quite a lot of fun little chicken facts. We recently learned that they are as loyal as dogs, and when they cluck as animals or people approach the coop, it’s similar to a dog barking to warn its owners, rather than the chickens being scared or just noisy.

Henrietta is already laying one egg per day, the average for laying hens.

Eggs come in a rainbow of colors: tinted, green, light pink, light brown, chocolate brown, and of course, boring old white. Black Jersey Giants, Australorps, and Light Brahma are just some of the many light brown layers. Welsummers, Penedesencas, or Marans all lay dark brown, and Buff Silkie Bantams, Easter Eggers, and Silver Sebrights all lay green eggs.

Here are some common chicken terms I have learned:

• Dust bath - A behavior pattern where chickens dig themselves a hole in the ground and sit in the dirt, rolling around and trying to get as dirty as possible. Dust bathing is an important defense against mites and lice, and if they don’t have access to a dust bath, they need an artificial dust bath set up indoors.

• Pecking order - The social organization created by a flock of chickens where a bird with a higher rank may peck a bird with a lower rank—those with a lower rank may not peck those with a higher rank. The bird with the highest rank can peck all the other birds; the one with the lowest rank can peck none.

• Roost - Pole or branch that chickens perch on.

• Roosting - When chickens perch on a pole or branch, as in when they sleep.

• Started pullet - A juvenile hen between that has already started laying eggs.

• Brood - A group of baby chicks as well as the desire of hens to incubate and be a good mother to baby chicks.

• Broodiness - The desire of some hens to sit on eggs whether they are fertilized or unfertilized, in order to incubate and hatch them.

Now that we have hens, we are discovering chicken lovers are everywhere. It turns out at least 10 of our friends have chickens, each with their own favorite, prized hen whose eyes light up when they get to talk about chickens.

Many people who raise chickens in Hawaii and order them from mainland hatcheries, but there is one on Oahu.

Asagi Hatchery in Kalihi, around since 1935, was one of the first and is currently the only hatchery in state. Asagi hatches chicks for local independent farmers, farms in the Pacific region, and for people who Asagi describes as “revitalizing the tradition of backyard personal flocks.”

There is Chickens Little in Wahiawa, as well as the Tin Roof Ranch on the North Shore who don’t sell chicks but sell their organic eggs in every color possible. Luann at Tin Roof is even starting an organic chicken feed co-op, and will soon be raising turkeys, too.

Considering that we have 26 chicks on their way from the hatchery, I thought we were pau with the chicken buying, but a few days later I came home to two new Blue Silkies sitting in the living room. I don’t even eat eggs!

We also ended up with one who apparently is at the bottom of the pecking order, and because of that is now our house chicken. Uala has been in the house for two weeks, has her own designated area with a roost, and goes outside twice a day to free range. She follows me everywhere I go when she’s free and will sit on my shoulder for as long as she can.

My house chicken is already buddies with my huge Rottweiler and old pit bull, and they peacefully cohabit. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

Chicken links:

http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html

http://www.asagihatchery.com/

http://www.idealpoultry.com/

http://www.mypetchicken.com/default.aspx