This First Person column is the experience of Laura Hebert, who lives in Vankleek Hill, Ont. For more information about First Person stories, see the FAQ.
My mornings typically start with the smell of coffee, grass and wood shavings. As the gravel crunches under my boots, I hear a sudden chorus of clucks, squawks and quacks. I’ve barely opened the door before the birds tumble out.
The flock is a blur of brown, white and black, stampeding down the ramp to find the usual breakfast that I scatter for my chickens and ducks. I wince and laugh and greet them: “Good morning, everyone.”
Sometimes a relationship will change you. For me, it was three: three scraggly, white hens.
An acquaintance of my partner had rescued a large group of hens and was trying to find them homes. These hens were less than a year old and had been kept in tight quarters with no space to lie down, no chance to forage, no sunshine. They deserved better. I didn’t know anything about chickens, but I wanted to help them.
My family couldn’t take them all, but we took three. We named them Mary, Minerva and Rhubarb. We built them a coop and gave them sand and grass to explore. They grew their feathers back and sunbathed.
The year after, my partner and I moved to a small hobby farm, which came with a bonus flock of ducks and laying hens. With that, I was officially in the backyard chicken world.
While more and more people are considering backyard chickens, the practice can be controversial.
Some community members worry about real and perceived drawbacks, with concerns about noise, public health and adequate care.
Others are drawn to the potential positives. They’re thinking about happy hens strolling around the lawn, local food and more ethical (and multicoloured) eggs. They want adorable pets and for their families to learn about animals and food systems.
The backyard chickens debate in 1983
I leaned toward the positive aspects. I grew up in a suburb, but I’ve always loved animals. My family had many pets — such as dogs, cats, budgies and hamsters — and I took horseback riding lessons. I knew how to take care of companion animals, but I’d never kept livestock.
That initial trio of hens started my love affair with chickens and unexpectedly changed my relationship with love and loss.
Chickens are characters. When they are free range, they are curious explorers. They’ll meet you on your front porch to help you garden.
They have relationships. I can tell you which of my hens are friends and which are enemies, which ones will roost together and which ones prefer to keep to themselves.
Sometimes they’ll pile into the same nesting box, two or three at a time — even though, as I remind them, they have 10 boxes available — each a bit indignant at the presence of the other, and then “sing” to announce they’ve laid an egg.
They have preferences: some of my girls will happily jaunt through the first snow of the year, others will hover in the doorway like I’ve betrayed them. Some love clovers. They all love grapes.
Keeping chickens is also grounding. I am more connected to nature and aware of the seasons. I see first-hand where my food comes from (I am nearly vegan now, but I do eat eggs from my flock).
I get a few minutes of mindfulness, too. When I sit beneath the crabapple tree, Speck and Bottle dust bathe and Dumpling pecks my shoelaces. And I can just be.
What I did not expect was the flip side: an overload of grief. But when you love your flock like pets and your pets like family, it isn’t easy.
The first hen I lost was Rhubarb. Soon after we got the original trio, Rhubarb got sick. I didn’t know what to do, so I rushed her down the road to a vet who fortunately treated “exotics.” But she couldn’t help Rhubarb.
We persisted. But keeping farm animals safe and healthy turned out to be a lot more involved than walking the family dog.
The first year at the farm, we lost hens to illness and predation. Laying hens, especially high-production breeds, are prone to reproductive infections and cancers. Chickens can be food in the animal kingdom, too. Foxes, raccoons, hawks, weasels, dogs, rats: everything seems to want to eat chickens.
Each season, we lose some to age or to illness. Sometimes, joyfully, I can nurse them back to health.
The hardest deaths are the ones that are our fault. The coop has been a safe haven and the flock’s explorations are protected by an electric fence.
But mistakes happen. Earlier this year, a mink killed four pullets the day after I brought them home. It later infiltrated our coop by chewing through a tiny crack, killing three hens (Blackie, Soot and Charcoal) and injuring our ducks.
A few weeks later, after fixing all possible coop vulnerabilities, we lost two more hens — Dumpling and Merlin — overnight in a heat wave. By fixing one issue, we’d caused a new one: insufficient ventilation.
Every loss is a flood of guilt and sadness. There is a saying: “When you have livestock, you have deadstock.” As an animal lover and recovering perfectionist, it’s deeply challenging.
But at the same time, in keeping this flock, there is growth. I am learning to sit with grief, to allow myself sadness, to carry it and move through it.
Five years later, the original trio is gone. We lost Minerva last year and Mary the year before, both to cancer and illness. But in the years they had with us, they had tall grass and fallen apples and sunbaths.
My backyard chickens remind me daily that joy and heartache come together, and through this, I have a new appreciation that I am trying to carry into other aspects of my life. This is what the flock has given me — in addition to eggs, companionship and entertainment — and I’m grateful for it.
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