A good egg

(c) 2009 by Steve Martaindale

A visit with the in-laws last weekend also gave us a chance to check up on Henny, Penny and Wanda.

As two-thirds of the names suggest, they are, in fact, chickens.

I’m not sure just what caused my mother-in-law to decide she would like to have chickens. Though they moved to the country for the first time almost 25 years ago, their animal stock has been limited to an occasional dog and maybe a dropped-off cat.

Maybe it was memories of her childhood, when her family and many others had chickens to help cope with the tough times of the Depression. Maybe it was a simple case of frugality. Whatever started her thinking about it, the word got to us last spring that what she most wanted for her birthday was a chicken coop.

The request set in motion a much-more-complicated-than-necessary string of possible chicken coop configurations and construction plans. Making it more difficult was the fact we live four to five hours away, depending on traffic, and that our visits rarely exceed more than 28 hours, from which we must also extract time for eating, sleeping, catching up, performing a chore or two, shopping and, most importantly, playing Shanghai.

During our search for chicken coop plans, we learned about “chicken tractors.” Basically, they are small enclosures one can tow around the yard. The benefit is the chickens remain confined (and therefore protected from coyotes and neighbors’ dogs), but they can eat insects all around the house ... albeit at an incredibly slow pace.

We determined a chicken tractor was the best solution, but the plans we found all seemed too imposing. Even though help would often be available, we wanted Carolyn to be able to move the tractor herself, because ... well ... because she has a habit of up-and-doing things herself. She is in fantastic shape for a person of any age, but she has blown out quite a few birthday candles and it is, after all, the job of the kids to start worrying after a certain point.

The chicken tractor should be made of PVC pipe, I decided, and I set to work devising a plan. I kept butting my head against a wall trying to figure out a way to construct a sturdy frame while minimizing pipe and, therefore, weight. Leah came up with a breakthrough suggestion that added a little pipe but made the whole thing workable.

One summer day, I came home from work and found the yard littered with PVC pipe, our evening plans literally laid out before us. We halved the 10-foot pipes to make the coop five feet tall and linked them to make it 20 feet long. We made end sections, one of which would serve as the door, and we pieced everything together. There it stood, a simple yet seemingly functional frame.

Leah put an indelible pen to work labeling each of the many joints – an “A” on the end of the pipe and an “A” on its corner piece. I chose to use screws instead of glue and fastened together as many of the pieces as we could while disassembling it for transport across the state.

With Carolyn’s help and under David’s guidance, we reassembled the frame at their house and proceeded to wrap it with chicken wire, using cable ties to secure the wire. The ties were Carolyn’s idea and proved much easier than my plan.

By the time of our next trip, Leah’s brother, James, had acquired three hens, introduced to us as Henny (the large hen), Penny (the smaller red) and Wanda (the one with the strange-looking comb). Each visit since required checking on the hens, seeing who can first spot the next egg, moving the tractor a bit and, mostly, just watching them be chickens.

Now, that’s entertainment.