Duchess of Chickens

Duchess of Devonshire feeding her chickens. Photo by Bruce Weber

Welcome new chickens! 

Two Black sex-linked and four Plymouth Rock pullets. A pullet is a teenaged chicken, in between fluffy chicks and egg-laying hens.   If all goes well we might be eating the most expensive eggs ever.  

We are socializing them by bringing treats, teaching them about the dog aka their protector, and to come when called.

This picture, The Duchess of Devonshire, illustrates my delight with the whole process of Chicken-ing.  I am working on the outfit.  Thanks to Sally Kohler for bringing it to my attention. I am honored it made her think of me.  Here is a poem to go with it.

Woman Feeding Chickens-- by Roy Scheele 

Her hand is at the feedbag at her waist, 

sunk to the wrist in the rustling grain 

that nuzzles her fingertips when laced 

around a sifting handful. It's like rain, 

like cupping water in your hand, she thinks, 

the cracks between the fingers like a sieve, 

except that less escapes you through the chinks 

when handling grain. She likes to feel it give 

beneath her hand's slow plummet, and the smell, 

so rich a fragrance she has never quite 

got used to it, under the seeming spell 

of the charm of the commonplace. The white 

hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes, 

till her hand sweeps out and the small grain flies. 

 "Woman Feeding Chickens" by Roy Scheele, from A Far Allegiance. © The Backwaters Press, 2010. Reprinted with permission.