Lessons learned from chickens

[Downthestretch55]

I'm a very simple man. But I DO pay attention.
When I was eleven years old, I bought some Rhode Island reds, mixed batch (straight run).
It broke my heart to cull out the rooster chicks at eight weeks, but, as my Mom said, "You only need one."
Many delicious Sunday dinners followed. Lucky I didn't name them.
So, I ended up with twelve hens and one rooster.
When I fed them for a few months, I watched their behavior. The pullets seemed so aware before they became hens. The rooster was oblivious.
I'd feed them cracked corn and ground oyster shells, hoping for the first eggs.
After a while, they finally started laying. I put a sign at the end of the driveway..."Fresh brown eggs for sale- $1 a dozen".
I sold almost as much as their fed cost at the local Agway. I got to eat plenty of omlets too.
Through it all, I paid attention to their behavior.
I'd let them out of their coop in the early morning. They had been safe from the racoons, foxes, and weasels all night. Dad and I built their little house right. I'd gather the eggs.
They'd scratch around in the yard, pick at bugs and go to the stream for a drink at mid morning. If a shadow came across them, they'd run under the apple trees or thorn bushes. They didn't like hawks.
After lunch, I'd go out to check on them, toss them some corn in the driveway where they were picking grit for their crops.
In the afternoon, they'd rest and dust. They'd do a lot of cluckin' to each other...hen talk stuff.
Then at dusk, they'd go back to their coop. Just like clockwork, night after night.
Seems to me the thing that they taught me was that the "chickens always come home to roost". They always did.
So, this little metaphor has a point...the chickens have come home to roost, again, they always do:

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1019-20.htm

DTS