"Scarce as hens teeth", goes the phrase, the joke being that - mercifully, for their keepers -chickens have none.
And, as chicken sayings abound, probably because keeping chickens has been woven into the fabric of every culture pretty much from time immemorial, there's another you've likely heard: "not a spring chicken".
Being a spring chicken can be overrated. Those nicely shrink-wrapped packages you see in the poultry section at the grocery store went from spring chick to your dinner plate in the span of about six weeks. And in commercial laying facilities, you don't really want to know what happens to a spring chicken come her second spring.
But here on Bendita farm, everyone gets amnesty and this summer a milestone was passed. Ginger, our sassy Ameraucana hen, celebrated her tenth birthday last month. A twenty-one-year-old chicken made the news awhile back, but for us, this is a first.
Ginger came to us as a day-old chick back in 2014, to be raised by our sweet broody bantam Mille Fleur d'Uccle, Pippa. That's little Ginger whispering into Pippa's ear:
Ginger's formal baby portrait:
Many hens have come and gone through the years. Pippa lived to be six, others have left us suddenly at only one or two. Sadly, we lost our youngest layer, Peggy, this May, and yet somehow, Ginger has marched on through the years.
Her color isn't as vivid as back in the day,
but hey, neither is mine, or probably yours. The achievement is in greeting the dawn every morning, which Ginger does with ėlan. Although she inexplicably crows somewhat like a rooster with the sunrise, she very occasionally will still surprise us by laying an egg. Who among us humans in our dotage, can do that?
The conventional lifespan for a hen is 5-10 years so I know that Ginger might be wearing out her rocking chair. Yet just yesterday she strutted across our front walk, sprightly as ever.
I want to celebrate this hardy hen while she's still with us - happy tenth birthday, Ginger - long may you squawk!
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