A hen in the tree.

I had never seen this before, so it surprised me a couple years ago when it first happened.

I suppose it is perfectly natural, given their instincts to roost as high as possible to avoid danger.

Many of our laying hens and roosters do not go into the coop to roost at night.  Instead, they roost in a tree.

There used to be a half dozen trees they roosted in, but now there is one particular tree they favor.

The Roosting Tree.

Some of the chickens do go in the coop at night.  And that’s where I would rather have them go.  We feed them in the coop to encourage them to go there.  But, about half of them stay outside at night.

During the winter, we have to catch them on cold days and lock them inside the coop in order to save their lives.  If they are left outside, the go right back to the roosting tree at evening, even if it’s -10F outside.  You’d think that their instinct would guide them to a warm, sheltered place in bad weather.

But, no, they have to have their tree.  If it’s storming, sometimes they will stay in it all day and all night.  It’s really funny to get up in the morning and see chickens all covered in snow, sitting in that tree.

If we let them, they’ll roost in that tree through rain, sleet, snow, and ice.

Chickens aren’t a particularly smart animal.  Most of the “smarts” and good instincts have been bred out of them over the years in favor of egg-laying genes.  Many commercial breeds have even lost their brooding instinct and thus will incubate and hatch out eggs themselves.

Still, you’d think that they could process a simple equation like: “If I roost here, I’ll be cold and wet; if I roost in there, I’ll be warm and dry.”

Not these chickens!

Two hens have hatched out chicks! There’s still one more hen sitting on eggs.

What a rough time of year for chicks to be born. We’ve already had a couple hard frosts. The nights are getting down into the high 20’s and low 30’s. The days are in the low- to mid-60s.

Chicks are so fragile. It’s amazing that they can survive in the barn. We do not have pigs or cows this year, so there is no large animal to heat the barn (well, it’s more of a shed than a barn).

One of the things I love about home schooling is that unplanned events can turn into the most fruitful learning experiences. This was one of those times. Our oldest daughter was out feeding the chickens when she saw a chick running around in front of the barn. She looked around and found a hen with eggs hatching.

The children have seen new chicks many times, but they had never watched them hatch before. This was a great opportunity for them.

They got several photos, and even some short video, of the chicks hatching.

Not all learning experiences are pleasant. They put a dish of water

down for the chicks and mother. When they came back later, there were two chicks in it. One was drowned and the other was well on its way. They rescued the one that was still alive and dried it out, then put it back with the hen, and dumped out much of the water from the dish, so that it wasn’t deep enough to drown any more chicks.