We have a small flock of chickens, have kept chickens for decades. There are thirteen hens, about half fully retired, the rest laying sporadically to regularly; we get two to five eggs a day, which is plenty for us and give-aways. Every morning they are let out of their fortress--a chicken house fortified with steel siding to keep out the many predators in our area. On being let out the contents of a small bucket are spread about for them to pick at while their food and water are being refreshed.
That bucket contains stuff we save for them, and routinely contains vegetable peels, seeds and outer or brown leaves, small amounts of leftover pasta, noodles or rice, fat bits from roasts or whatever, stale bread, crumbed-out cornbread, overdone toast--and their very favorite in strawberry season: pieces of stale angel food cake or dessert cups.
Yes, these are very spoiled chickens. Anyway, a scoop of scratch mix--a blend of corn, oats, wheat and other grains gets mixed in with the scraps in the bucket and spread. They race around, going for the best bits--fat and bread--first. But the bread supply has been a bit spotty lately. Most winters I bake our bread, but artisan bread from a very good downstate bakery became available this winter, and we kept getting that--until a couple weeks ago. We still have bread, just not much in the way of stale or leftover stuff. I made biscuits last week, None made it to the chickens, but the dog did get a share.
The chickens took notice of, and exception to this sad state of affairs. For a couple weeks they'd race to what I'd spread, mostly just scratch mix and veggie scraps, then as one they would stop, turn, and stare up at me in fowl umbrage, basically saying, What the hell is this shit? Where's our clucking bread?
I had begun suspecting they were planning some sort of concerted action; an egg stoppage, a feathery riot, or perhaps even a concerted attack. A flock can become a mob, you know, and while it probably would not have been lethal, it would not have been pretty.
On my weekly grocery run last week what the store mostly had was your basic buck and a half a loaf horrible white bread--bales of the stuff. I was able to get sesame bagels for me and onion bagels for my wife, and some whole wheat Kaiser rolls for burger night. And I bought a loaf of that white bread. For the chickens.
They get two slices a day mixed in with their bucket stuff, and peace and contentment has been returned to the yard. The birds are no longer squawking, Give us our daily bread, or prepare for the consequences monkey boy!
A loaf will last a week and a half. Fifteen cents a day is a small price to pay for not having to wear attack dog training gear into the chicken yard.
And the eggs no longer taste of outrage and spite.