Of Horses, Chickens and Pigeons

We have horses. Or my partner has horses, Morgan show horses. Eighteen months ago, while we were away at a horse show, a friend anonymously "donated" a few chickens. We named them George, Tuesday, Henrietta 1 and Henrietta 2. Two roosters and two hens. And that was OK.

So, we gave them their own space in the horse barn, a little bedding and bought a bag of chicken food. Something called "laying pellets" to increase egg production. No big deal, right? Sure.

Turns out that the chickens preferred to be out in the pasture with the horses and eat horse grain. The chickens got fat, they layed eggs - but who was eating the chicken food? Pigeons. And you know what? Those damned laying pellets really do increase egg production.

We live on the northern coast of Maine. You can just about spit into Canada from here (although we would never think of doing such a thing). It is cold up here, really cold. But do the pigeons care? No. February 12th 2005 we had multiple pigeon nests in the rafters of the horse barn with eggs in them. It was 18 degrees outside. But those damned birds just kept laying eggs. By the end of the summer of 2005, the pigeon numbers had increased from 12 to 42.

Partway through the summer, foxes got the chickens. So we stopped putting out chicken food and started concentrating on keeping pigeons out of the horse barn. We were making some progress. Then Tuesday (one of the roosters), miraculously reappeared. He'd been hiding out in the woods in front of the house but now he was back in the barn. No laying pellets for this guy, he eats horse grain and cracked corn. He's fat and happy.

I guess our anonymous friend decided that Tuesday must be lonely. A couple of days ago, six more anonymous chickens arrived. Laying pellets again. Damn. I guess the pigeons are going to be having fun.