Front Porch: Miss Chicken lives mellow life in Spokane Valley yard, Pettit reports

It’s early fall now, and all is well with the chickens.

Time to update the doings in Miss Chicken’s world, at the request of members of her fan club. And for those who aren’t familiar with this semi-regular report – Miss Chicken is a chicken who, as a young bird, arrived in our driveway one cold winter day in 2009, lived in the neighborhood on her own for a year and was finally corralled by us and relocated to the home of my friend Joan in Spokane Valley, where this formerly feral bird has thrived ever since.

I had no idea that she would develop a following and, if I don’t provide news about her and her flock mates from time to time, I am taken to task.

The first thing to note is that there was a little scare with Miss C earlier this spring. She laid what could best be described as a golf ball sized mass having something of a yolk, no shell. And then another one the next day.

Joan was concerned that she had water belly or egg peritonitis, conditions which can be fatal. It was a crisis in the making which played out over just those two days. Miss C has been fine ever since, but those were the last eggs she ever laid.

I don’t know if there is such a thing as poultry menopause, but if so, this was the signal of its sudden arrival. Of all of Joan’s 19 chickens, Miss C – once the baby of the group of mostly castoff chickens – is now the second oldest.

Having been on her own for her first year of life, it took her some time to be comfortable being handled and even a good flock member. But she’s there now. Still not totally tame, it was in this past year that Joan noticed how our gal has mellowed.

Over the years Miss C would take to brooding and wouldn’t be dissuaded from leaving the nest. Joan has all sorts of techniques to get her chickens over this drive for babies, but Miss C was relentless when she got to setting. Often Joan would give in and get a couple of day-old chicks and put them under her at night. In the morning, Miss C would be one happy girl and turned into one of the best chicken-mamas Joan has ever seen.

Well, she’s at it again. No chicken will starve herself to death, so she will hop out to eat and drink sometimes, but mostly Joan has to glove-up (so as not to get pecked), slide her hands under her, grab her feet and lift her out of the nest to shoo her outside for chow and some dusting.

“All my tricks don’t work with her,” Joan said, “but I will outlast her. No babies.”

I often speak of the girls in the flock, but some attention is probably due the two banty roosters who reside there as well. They’ve been together since hatching so don’t quarrel with one another – though they do like the ladies. When a hawk flew overhead this summer, the boys were ready to take it on while the girls sheltered under a tree, so they do try to be protectors as well.

Tokio and Toshio, both Japanese grays, are probably the handsomest birds at Joan’s home for unwanted chickens. Isn’t that the truth, that the guys get all the fluff and pretty feathers?

Joan entered some eggs from the flock at the Spokane County Fair this year and won a blue ribbon with special rosette for the banty eggs she brought and a blue ribbon for both medium brown and medium white eggs.

And while it’s probably not provable, I wouldn’t be surprised if – in addition to good overall care and quality chow – happy hour doesn’t also lead to their contentment and egg quality. Most every afternoon, when chores are done and a little breather would be nice, Joan and Jim take a beverage – maybe a beer for Jim and iced tea for Joan – and they sit in chairs under the apple tree and talk with one another and with the girls in the “back 40,” where the flock gathers round and feasts on meal worms.

Olivia, a big bird with shiny black feathers and blind in one eye, hops on Jim’s lap, and Maggie Sue nestles in Joan’s. Maggie Sue was a one-day-old Millie Fleur who was near death but who Joan brought home with a couple of healthy chicks back in 2012 when she gave in to Miss Chicken’s broody behavior.

“If any chicken could mother a baby back to health, it would be her, so I thought this little one deserved a chance,” Joan said. As Maggie Sue sleeps in Joan’s lap now in the waning warm days of Indian Summer, it’s clear the rescue worked.

Not a bad life for a group of chickens that nobody wanted.

Voices correspondent Stefanie Pettit can be reached by e-mail at upwindsailor@comcast.net.