There’s is nothing like rolling over at 4:30 A.M. to three girls screaming at you at the top of their lungs. I throw my pillow over my head and try to ignore them but they scream louder and louder.
“Bawk! Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!”
That’s right, I’m not talking about female humans, I’m talking about my God forsaken chickens. I only have three, I had six but ended up killing three because they wouldn’t shut the hell up.
Okay, actually I gave three away because they were just too crowded in my earlier coop. But I think the idea of sacrificing them to the Screaming Chicken gods sounds better.
The reality is, I love my chickens. They’re the only girls I’ve ever had that never really complained to me. Until recently.
I had the brilliant idea of expanding the coop so that they’d have a lot more room (nearly three times as much) to roam around and peck the dirt and perch on walls. I’m actually quite happy with the expansion, as are they. Then for the winter, I wrapped their custom made water dispenser that I built in heat tape, set up a thermostat that will kick on any time the temperature drops below 34F and have started to wrap the coop in plastic. I also set up a fluorescent light that turns on for “summer hours”. This generally keeps egg production going during the dark winter months (yeah, chickens are a few fries short of a happy meal).
Then two days ago my girls started squawking profusely around 4:30 A.M.
I knew that they didn’t lay until around 5:30-6:00 (yeah, I’m that weird). So I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.
Then I did some research and found that many chickens do what’s called the “Egg song”. They basically are singing about the fact that they are going to lay an egg and oh what a wonderful egg it is. I finally found some translation guides and was able to translate most of Esther’s song (the real loudmouth of my coop) as follows:
TRANSLATION: “Listen up girls, I got an egg. I got an egg. Oh what a marvelous egg! It’s better than yours, oh so much better than yours. In fact your eggs suck. They are tiny and [censored] and pathetic but mine or so big! So amazing!”
Anyway, the song goes on to state how wonderful her eggs are and how much better of a hen she is than Gertie or Sassy (my other two hens). There’s also some expletives in there that I would prefer not to censor… dirty bird.
The point is, it’s completely normal behavior and I guess if I want fresh eggs, I just need to make sure I also have earplugs.