If you have even a vague appreciation for farming, you probably fantasize about owning chickens. After all, in the decision tree of “Rural activities best attempted in an urban or suburban setting,” poultry rearing lands somewhere between growing corn and square dancing as an attainable goal.
With that in mind, I’ve wanted chickens for a long time. It’s just that I’ve never had the space and I lack animal husbandry skills. The only dog I’ve ever owned, Bruce, was a good guy—but a neurotic mess. And during my daughter’s hermit crab and tropical fish phases, our water bills spiked thanks to an inordinate amount of toilet bowl funerals.
I now live on seven acres with a wife whose talent with animals is on par with her gardening skills. Living things thrive under her custodianship. Therefore, we got chickens.
Initially, I worried that our love of travel would be a blocker. When we leave, our cats Mandy and Donut practically take care of themselves. Yes, someone checks in on them every couple of days, but they have their food and water dispensers and they’re happy doing their own thing. (Unlike Bruce, who could not tolerate solitude for more than a couple hours. He once shredded my great-grandfather’s leather easy chair into three-inch strips in a fit of separation anxiety. He would also pull records out of my vinyl collection and eat them if left alone, preferring the works of Lorde and Eddie Rabbit.)
Chickens didn’t strike me as independent, but after further research, it turns out that they’re basically feathered cats. Sort of. They do fine with their water and grain feeders and they put themselves to bed at night. Already, a number of neighbors have volunteered to check in on the birds when we’re away, I suspect because they’ll be richly rewarded with free eggs. All we need to do is bring them a semi-fancy bottle of wine from wherever we travel in thanks. It’s win-win. Or maybe wine-win.
For the record, eggs play a big role in the diet of most amateur chicken owners. If you’re concerned about our cholesterol levels, don’t be. Unless you have existing high cholesterol, science has figured out that dietary cholesterol isn’t a big deal when it comes to cardiovascular issues. (What you want to look out for is saturated fat.) Even the USDA backs this line of thinking, having removed cholesterol limits from its Dietary Guidelines.
So, soufflés are on me!
Trying to avoid fowl play.
You can let chickens roam as they please during the day and they’ll come back to the coop at dusk. However, we felt this to be an excessive amount of liberty when we travel, so we decided to build a large chicken-wired enclosure with a coop inside. The birds will live in the enclosure when we’re not around. Otherwise, they’ll have the run of La Villatte.
Initially, we wanted to convert the small two-horse stable behind the garage into a coop and encase the land in front of it in chicken wire. We had big plans for raised beds, a re-purposed mini-barn door entrance, and corrugated roofing.
Then reality set in and we figured out that we could buy a pre-fab coop and enclosure for less than 400 euros, which is probably less than we would have paid for our grandiose horse stable conversion. It’s a more secure option given the amount of holes we’d need to patch in the stable to make it predator-proof. Also, it greatly reduces my blood loss during construction.
Foxes, badgers, martens, feral cats, and weasels are a legitimate threat to chickens. If you’ve never heard of martens—which I hadn’t—they fall between badgers and weasels in size. They’re called les martres in French and they’re the predator that local farmers seem to worry about the most.
Every poultry owner around here has some sort of gruesome horror story involving martens. One person told us that a marten had, over days, burrowed a hole through the wooden floor of his coop. One morning, he awoke to discover his chickens massacred—with their heads missing because that’s the only edible body part the marten could fit through its escape hole. When I asked him how he knew a marten was to blame, he incredulously responded that it was a marten-sized hole.
This and a few other tales of terror left Marilyne and me with a nagging fear of martens—and all other mustelids for that matter—that compelled us to take security extra seriously.
We decided to establish our set-up in the corner of the big field behind our backyard so that we can hear and see our little feathered friends from the house, but far enough away to avoid the inevitable odor folks tell us will soon arise. Also, our septic tank is located under our backyard. While I have yet to learn how septic tanks work, I’m guessing we’ll need access to it, so putting a coop directly on top is probably a bad idea.
Some assembly required.
The enclosure covers 18 square meters—or about 194 square feet—enough for six chickens. It arrived as a pile of galvanized steel posts, bolts, and chicken wire with instructions that explained 80% of assembly. The manufacturers expected you to improvise the rest.
I’ve found this to be a common method of explanation in France. For example, if you ask directions to, say, the local hardware store, any well-meaning paysan willing to answer will give you very specific directions to about a kilometer from your destination, then you’re on your own.
Still, we managed to assemble the enclosure in a couple hours with minimal debate.
The wooden coop was easier to figure out. It also sleeps six.
We made modifications to both structures. I lined the bottom of the coop with additional chicken wire to prevent marten-sized holes. We also dug a 30-centimeter trench (about a foot) around the enclosure, buried additional chicken wire, then fastened it to the enclosure with far too many zip-ties.
In my opinion, any animal that finds a way through this WWII stalag amount of security deserves a chicken.
We also lock the chickens in the coop at night. At first, I thought this cruel, but apparently they don’t mind. It’s not like they get up in the middle of the night to pee or check their email. They don’t care about where they leave their excreta and they can always just take their phones into the coop.
So far, it has been my job to free the hens at dawn given I’m an early riser. It’s adorable. They wait patiently for me to open the door, then they hobble out and start pecking at yesterday’s kitchen scraps, which I’ve just dumped in the corner. Although we provide a steady supply of grain, chickens eat most things. They especially seem to enjoy worms and wet, stale baguettes. They’re basically feathered cat pigs. Sort of.
I then walk around the perimeter of the enclosure, looking for signs of marten tempering. I also pee in the surrounding grass, my logic being that human urine might ward off other animals. I’m not alone in this hypothesis.
We can’t really ask someone to be at our house at dawn and dusk every day when we’re gone, so we’ve purchased an automatic sliding door that works on a timer. It looks a lot like a guillotine and it’s a little weird to trust the lives of our chickens to a device that runs on two AA batteries, but we’ll see how it goes. I plan to keep it off when I’m home because I like my morning poultry bonding.
Meet les poules.
We let two of Marilyne’s sister Sophie’s friends use our field for their horses. When they heard we were building a coop, one of them offered two chickens for free. It was a generous offer. Then again, it’s nice of us to let her use our field. Marilyne tells me this is how it works in the country. One good turn deserves another. C’est entendu!
The day after our enclosure was complete, Sophie’s friend showed up with two bantam hens—poules naines in French. They were about six months old. One is gray and one is black. We named them Kevin and Don in honor of a couple of friends in California.
Within a day, Kevin and Don each laid a small egg. Since bantam hens are just small chickens, it’s logical that their eggs would be to scale. The next day, they laid two more. The day after that, only one of them laid an egg. I’m guessing it was Don since I’ve seen her taking late-morning naps in the coop shortly before a new egg appears.
We had omelets and tomato salad for lunch that day. The yolks were a deep orange that held through to the omelet. I can’t say they tasted better than other eggs I’ve had, but it felt cool knowing they came from our chickens.
The following Monday, we purchased four more chickens from small, local vendors at the Foire de Giat.
Sophie purchased two of them. She named them Martre and Goupil, which is old French for “fox.” She hopes this may somehow ward off predators. She doesn’t know I already have this under control with my peeing, but she spends a lot of time back there and I’m not sure how to let her know.
Marilyne named the third chicken Tesla because her flat grey color is reminiscent of the paint job often seen on those cars. The final bird has beautiful black feathers with a hint of brown around the neck. I named her Bruce, in honor of my neurotic, old dog, who would have loved it here.
Sadly for Bruce, I don’t think pop music LPs or vintage chair leather will be on their menu.
Les mots du moment.
Here are a few words and phrases I used a lot this week that you might like to know.
C’est entendu!: It’s understood!
Le poulailler: the chicken coop
L’enclos à poules: the chicken enclosure
Le grillage à poule: chicken wire. You can also just say le grillage. In fact, when I say le grillage to describe the entire chicken enclosure, everyone understands me, which doesn’t alway happen.
La poule: the chicken or the hen
La poule naine: the bantam hen
Le coq: the rooster. We are waiting to get a rooster because that little red spot in fertilized eggs weirds me out. That said, roosters help ward off predators and, at dawn, you get to hear…
Cocorico!: cock-a-doodle-doo!
Le renard: the fox
Le blaireau: the badger
La belette: the weasel
La martre: the marten. Coincidently (or maybe not), la martre is a similar word to le meurtrier—the murderer. I have a sinking feeling this isn’t the last time I’ll be writing about this animal.
If martens are anything like gophers then I know of an instructional film from the early 80's that has many ways of dealing with them.
Hey Denis.
Chickens are awesome! We have had a flock for 10+ years.
Although, it sounds idyllic to get up at dawn to let the chickens out, consider an automatic chicken door in the future. We have this one, but there are a lot of options out there.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/ChickenGuardUS/page/6DA78017-4644-4956-923A-AA3CC9311F24?ref_=ast_bln