We all love all of our chickens. And, sometimes there’s one chickie girl in the flock who is just a little bit tighter a buddy than the others. Edie is my number one chicken friend in our flock. She is a busy, clucky, busty Barred Rock.
Edie and her sister Dierdre (more often Deedee) were an immediately sweet and social pair in our April 2020 brood. Not always social with each other, but they bonded with us. Deedee with S. Edie with me.
In their pullet days, Deedee and Edie looked a lot alike—before their combs filled in and before we had clearly discovered their personalities. I wasn’t always sure if I was interacting with Deedee or Edie.
When I look back at videos now, it’s clear who it is because—personality! Little Eeds was always running over to Mommy (even before she liked the camera) and asking for clover. I call Edie “little Eeds” a lot. I have no idea how to spell “Eeds,” but it is pronounced like “Leeds,” as in The Who Live at Leeds.
Eeds is an in-it-to-win-it little chicken girl and she knows mommy holds big unwavering love for her.
When the girls are first released from their run, she likes to get scratchy and find a few delicious worms, stat! Once she’s had her initial fix, she’ll be at my feet chatting away, asking for some hand-fed clover.
I’ve said to S. more than once, it’s a good day when I feed Edie clover. To be clear, there is all sorts of clover everywhere that Edie can readily identify without my help, but no clover is better than clover straight from mommy’s hand.
And then there’s Edie’s other favorite: fresh worms. She loves it when S. or I pull out the garden fork or shovel. She will come running after the big clanky, possibly-very-harmful-to-a-chicken tool anxiously awaiting the surface of the earth to be broken open for. . . her!
Some days I am the parent who brings out the fork for no reason but to unearth earth worms for the girls, and while others in the flock are there for it too, little Eeds is the one standing right on top of where the dirt is rising up from below.
Of course there are more stories and pictures and heart-warming sweetness. The point of this story is to confirm that if given a little space to you may fall in love with your chickens in a way you never expected. Like anyone you interact with, they learn to read you and you learn to read them. They enter your heart with their fierce one-eyed stares that say, “Mommy, I am watching you. Stay close, please.”
And, it may be that there is one chickie girl in the flock who reads you the best of all and knows just how to make their needs known in a way that softens all the hard things in your life. Chickens are feathered friends, who offer gifts of slowing down, digging for no reason, picking dewy green trefoils to share, and (with time) golden-yolked nourishment. Surrender to a little two-way imprinting and let the clover parties begin.