Media (and candy) hungry hens

I got a call a few weeks ago from a local reporter, Sheryl DeVore from the Grayslake Trib Local, doing a story on backyard chickens -- she wondered if our hens might be available for a photo session. Of course! Our hens LOVE media attention so we set a date for Sheryl to visit. I arranged for our regular Friday morning Hen House Helpers to come a little later than usual so they could be part of the story too.

It was a beautiful day on the farm, and the hens were very enthusiastic subjects! The Hen House Helpers demonstrated how they gathered eggs -- some of the younger (and shorter) children in the family carefully reached above their heads to gather eggs in the upper nest boxes. All the nest boxes -- high and low -- were diligently checked and emptied by the children. Nestled carefully in the egg baskets, the morning's eggs were collected and ready to be washed.

Before we headed to the Egg Wash Station, Sheryl wanted more shots of the chickens in their outdoor chicken yard. The EggMobile is constructed so that volunteers can collect eggs without entering the chicken yard, but she wanted to walk around inside with the hens and get the full chicken experience. We turned off the electric fence, opened the gate, and she slipped inside.

The chickens were very excited to see their visitor! They hustled over and crowded around her feet -- anxious to get in the newspaper I'm sure. As you can imagine, it's difficult to take pictures with over 150 enthusiastic chickens clamoring at your feet. The kids and I tossed in some "chicken candy" to distract the hens and give her some breathing space to take photographs. What is "chicken candy"? It is a mix of grains with some bits of corn. The corn is not particularly good for laying hens, but they LOVE to eat it -- hence the infrequent "candy" treat.

The hens were happy, the reporter relieved, the children entertained -- AND Sheryl had taken some wonderful shots of the beautiful Prairie Crossing Learning Farm hens. The end result was the following two TribLocal articles (plus some extra video/photo footage embedded in the first article):

http://triblocal.com/grayslake/2011/09/05/learning-farm-raises-chickens-for-eggs-education/

http://triblocal.com/round-lake/2011/09/05/residents-want-backyard-chickens-legal-in-county/

Enjoy! If you have a chicken story you'd like to share on the blog, please let me know.

Erin Cummisford