Life on the Farm
Chickens feel safer when they roost off the ground, particularly while they sleep at night. Providing perches inside a chicken coop reduces the temptation that they will sleep unsafely outdoors in a tree or along a fence top. Perches are...
While chickens can get coronaviruses, the same viruses do not infect humans. Further, we have no evidence that chickens can get the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. What is a Coronavirus? Viruses are tiny pathogens, so small that millions can travel...
Every now and then I run across a newt, either wandering in the backyard or curled up in some corner of the garden. Here in Tennessee I’m always delighted to spot a bright orange Eastern newt. It never occurred to...
Animal behaviorists all agree that the various sounds chickens make have meaning. But they disagree on how to interpret the meaning. Some believe chickens speak a language, similar to human language. Others question whether chickens mean what they say. They...
Chickens make a lot of different sounds, and every one of them means something, at least to another chicken. But do chickens speak a language? Do they convey information in the same way humans do with words? Do chickens, like...
Why do you suppose we humans believe we know what chickens are saying when they make certain sounds? It’s because humans convey emotion using the same system of vocalizing as chickens. The structure of any sound a chicken makes, or...
The mysteries of the origin of chicken talk and human speech may be found in the goings-on among the frogs and toads in your farm pond, says my ornithologist friend Gene Morton, who has written extensively on animal behavior and...
Anyone who spends much time around chickens can tell by the sounds they make if they are frightened, contented, cautious, and a whole range of other emotions. But no one has definitively resolved the question: Exactly how many words do...
The first flock of guinea fowl we had on our Tennessee farm consisted of mostly pearl guineas, with a few white guineas in the lot. Unfortunately, white poultry of any kind are usually the first to succumb to predation, and...
When we built our chicken coop into a corner of our barn, we considered digging out the dirt floor and pouring a concrete slab. Concrete is the most expensive floor option for a coop. But concrete is the best floor...
