One, two, three, four, five…fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…Wait! OK. One, two, three, four, five…fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I’m missing one chicken!

This is the story of my life. I have to hunt down “one more” chicky girl at least two or three times a day.

When we ordered our chickens, we wanted a dozen but ordered fifteen in case some didn’t survive the shipping. About two days after we got our chickens, my husband announced that we had seventeen, not fifteen. It seems the company sent us extra in case some didn’t survive. We’ve been counting to seventeen ever since.

Counting chickens has become such a regular part of my day and my husband’s day that all we have to do is shout to each other, “I got seventeen,” and we know what we mean, and we can relax—for at least the next little bit.

Our girls have a beautiful coop my husband built and a “run” that is surrounded by a very tall fence for chicky-girl protection, but our girls, our Rhode Island Reds, have strong spirits, free spirits, and they want to free range as much a possible.

Since we live right in the middle of some Maine woods, this means I live in constant fear of hawks, eagles, foxes, and weasels, and mysterious forest creatures of my imagination, all of which have a taste for chicken. If you know me, you know I’m a worrier. So I worry about our girls.

But, to be fair to myself, though I love my neighbors, they don’t help my worrying. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that it’s “just a matter of time” before we “lose a few.” And one of our neighbors even told me a story—twice—about some kind of creature that killed most of his chickens and left their heads in a pile!

All I could do was make my “tragic” face and say “oh dear!” I mean, what kind of serial chicken killer lives in these woods?

So you can see why I worry—and why we count. On an average day, I’m not sure how many times my husband counts the chickens, but I’ll bet I head outside and count about ten times a day. And this takes some time. They’re never together and can be in all kinds of places on our property. They’re also extremely wiggly. It’s a job.

I used to be able to bribe the girls. I could bring out a small piece of bagel or fruit, call for my girls, and they would all come running. Now, I get like twelve when I do that. The other five make me hunt them down and worry.

The worst counting incident came in the late fall. It was early morning, and the girls were out in an open area to be in the sun. I was in the kitchen making breakfast when our youngest came running in to say he heard “a commotion” with the chickens. My husband and I ran outside just in time to see what looked like an eagle flying away. I didn’t know how long the “commotion” had been going on, but my heart sank. I figured it was “the matter of time” our neighbors had been telling us about.

Some of the girls were hiding in the garage, and they were very upset. We had thirteen in the garage, and some were so scared they were hiding within my husband’s tools on his shelves.

When I found three more girls hidden very deeply in some shrubs near the eagle sighting, I knew we had sixteen, and I was just sure that was it, that we finally lost one. My husband and I continued to search everywhere to no avail, and I began to cry. After a pretty exhaustive search, I headed back to the shrubs where I had found the other three, thinking that since I had not seen those girls originally, maybe I had missed one more. But nothing. No more girls.

As I walked back toward the house with a heavy heart, I can’t even begin to describe the beautiful thing I saw. My husband was coming from the backside of the house, and he was carrying number seventeen. I couldn’t believe it!

Sometimes, I think my husband is a super hero. He is a saver of days for sure. But this was big for me. He was the saver of chickens as far I was concerned. Now, I don’t mean to make it seem like my husband is always a super hero. I mean, he does leave the coffee grounds on the black granite in the kitchen most mornings, but, well, mostly he is a super hero. He just is. He was totally a super hero to me anyway as he carried that shivering chicky girl toward me.

He said he found her way down under the back steps of our deck. I don’t want to jinx us, but our girls are pretty smart. They seem to be good hiders.

Since that day, we make sure our girls have lots of places to “duck and cover,” and they do a pretty good job. Still, there is a lot of counting work to do each day.

Interestingly, even though the new babies we got last week are all contained in a temporary brood in my husband’s office, we find ourselves counting them too. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. They’re always all there—at least for now.

And, in the evenings, after the big girls have put themselves to bed, when I go out to close up their coop (and let me tell you it is like the Fort Knox of chicken coops), I do one more count—all the way to seventeen.

And I say goodnight to the girls, and they make their sweet, sleepy chicken noises (they coo). In my mind, as crazy as it sounds, I’m sure they’re saying goodnight and thanking us for worrying about them.

I’m certainly no expert on raising chickens, but I learn more every day and spend a lot of time reading the forums at backyardchickens.com, one of my favorite sites. Of course, my husband and I didn’t just jump into this chicken thing blindly. I think I read The Backyard Homestead Guide to Raising Farm Animals about three times and then the chicken chapter about six more times after our baby chicks arrived. So I continue read a lot and ask a lot of questions, but I have also learned that our girls have their own personalities and their own tastes in snacks. I have also learned that our chicky girls are spoiled.

Chickens can eat people food, with some exceptions, of course, but they love bread and fruits and vegetables. For some reason, our girls do not love apples, but I still haven’t figured that one out, as other people tell me their girls love apples. Our girls do love breads and veggies and most fruits, but they have one rule for us—these items must be chopped up. I guess we started out that way, and there is no turning back now. If we put a whole piece of lettuce or a piece of fruit in their bowl, they will snob it. We must chop up their snacks into bite-sized chicken treats.

One thing we did that has been a huge help in the snack and food department (and I highly recommend this to anyone with a large number of chickens) is contact our local bagel shop to see if they had any scraps they were just throwing in the trash. Now, this was no easy task, so I don’t want to make it seem like we got a “yes” on the first place we called. We called all kinds of grocery stores and sandwich shops to see if we might be able to get their scraps. Larger stores had policies against such things, and most of the smaller places were already working with local farmers to give away scraps. So it took me a couple of weeks, but we finally got really lucky. It was definitely worth all the calling around.

The bagel shop that shares its scraps with us uses fresh ingredients and makes everything from scratch. Sometimes, when I look in the buckets after my husband picks them up, I think that I might like to eat some of those scraps. There are grapes, tomatoes, fresh lettuce, sometimes onions that we have to remove, and bagels, beautiful bagels. But I never eat anything from the scrap buckets, so don’t worry.

But, of course, then these scraps must be chopped up for our chicky-girl enjoyment. Did I mention our girls were spoiled?

The universe smiled on us with the bagel shop thing in many ways. Coincidentally, our girls loved bagels long before we got the scraps from the bagel shop. Shortly after the girls were able to eat people food, I started heading out to see them every morning. It was late summer, so I would sit and watch them while I ate my morning bagel and drank my tea. Soon, I was sharing my bagel. Soon after, the girls were getting their own bagels, and we developed a routine, a morning ritual that was good for my soul. I hope it’s good for our girls. I think it is.

Every morning, as soon as I get up, I head out to the chicken coop in my jammies with my bagels in my robe pockets. I open the coop door, and as the girls head out in their yard, I start pinching up bagel pieces and sharing. I have to move quickly with 17 (we ordered 15, and the company sent 2 extra for good measure) hungry and spoiled girls, but they are fantastic. They squawk and talk to me (and I’m pretty sure some are being quite bossy), and I have some that will pick a piece of bagel out of my hands so gently that it touches my heart. Of course, some girls will take my finger with the bagel, but some of our girls seem to be gentle spirits. I love them. I love all of them.

After the girls get their bagels, I say, every morning, “That’s for you. Now, let’s see what you have for me.” I head into the coop and collect eggs.

There are usually a couple of girls still in the coop laying in the nesting boxes, so I have to sneak a few bits of bagel in for them. I give them a few pieces, and most of them will stand up slowly and carefully, so I can take the eggs. Every now and then, a girl doesn’t want me to take her egg, but that’s another blog post.

The whole process is beautiful and important to me. We take care of our girls. They take care of us. They give us fresh eggs, which is such an amazing gift. I am so thankful to them that it feels important to me to show our girls appreciation, which includes chopping up chicken snacks every day.

Chickens are truly amazing animals. They have personality, are smarter than most people might think, and give us food to sustain us.

Our chickens have taught me so much about love toward all animals by teaching me how much of a connection there can be between people and farm animals. Plus, when I see how sweet my husband is to our chicky girls, it makes me love him even more–if that’s possible.

I have always been a dog and cat person. Now, I am a chicken person, too. How could I not be in love with these girls?