Going To Bed With The Chickens

Chickens -- indeed, most birds apart from owls and other night hunters, are hard-wired to turn in early. I went down last night to close them up and they'd all put themselves to bed -- or to roost.

It was quite dark inside the chicken house ( the pictures were taken with a flash) and some of them had lapsed into the coma that comes over birds in the dark. This is, of course, what makes them so vulnerable to possums and raccoons and foxes at night -- they can be dead before they wake up.

We have two more hens who want to be mothers and rather than roost, they stay on their nests. As we really don't need any biddies, we remove the eggs they are sitting on -- generally eggs other hens have laid as once a hen turns broody, she quits laying. Try this in the day time and the one on the left will give you such a peck ---- but at night she's like a rag doll.

The banty hens and rooster are up in their snug attic.

Early to bed, early to rise is the chicken motto. It was about eight pm and still quite light when I took these pictures but the chickens will be up in the morning with the sun -- long before eight am.