There’s a common misconception that chickens are simple, quiet creatures
They peck a little, scratch around the garden, lay an egg or two, and call it a day. That’s a lie. A bold-faced, egg-shaped lie.
My chickens are tiny, feathered drama queens. Each one has an opinion, a grudge, and at least one rival in the flock. Watching them is like tuning into an unscripted soap opera—except with more feathers and fewer commercial breaks. It’s the heart of what makes funny farm life so full of charm (and absolute madness).
Take Hilda, for example.
She’s decided that every nesting box belongs to her. It doesn’t matter that there are six others. No. Only the one another hen is in will do. I’ve watched her stomp across the coop with purpose, climb into an occupied box, and flatten herself on top of the current tenant with all the grace of a bowling ball in a silk purse. The resulting argument is louder than a rock concert and ten times more chaotic. Squawking, wing flapping, the occasional dramatic pause for emphasis—it’s performance art, really.
Then there’s Maude, the tattletale.
Anytime someone sneaks into the vegetable patch or starts digging where they shouldn’t, she doesn’t quietly join them. No, Maude stands at the edge and screams. A piercing, repetitive warning that alerts me, the neighbour, and probably someone three villages away. She paces back and forth like an avian security guard, absolutely disgusted with the behaviour of her peers. I’ve started calling her “The Sheriff.” She hasn’t earned a badge, but she carries the self-importance of one.
Gertrude is another case entirely.
She now insists on laying her eggs behind the compost bin. I don’t know why. Maybe she’s protesting the state of the nesting boxes. Maybe she’s staging a sit-in. All I know is that she disappears for hours and then returns, smug and empty. I eventually found her little secret nest while turning the compost and was treated to the death stare of a hen whose privacy had been violated. She didn’t lay for a week after that. I’m fairly certain it was punishment.
The rooster?
He’s convinced he’s royalty. Struts around like a mix of Napoleon and a Vegas Elvis impersonator. He makes a big show of calling the ladies over whenever he finds a bug—usually one they already saw—and fluffs up like a feather duster when I wear red nail polish. I once caught him attacking a wheelbarrow. A full-on, spurs-first, screaming assault on an inanimate object. Because it was red. Obviously.
And just when I thought I had a handle on the chaos—cue the goats.
Yes. The goats.
Originally acquired to “help keep the grass down and provide milk,” our goats have developed a different career path: professional escape artists. I suspect they’re part mountain goat, part magician, and part chaos gremlin. No matter how I reinforce the fencing, they will find a way out. Over, under, through, or—once memorably—by jumping on top of the chicken coop, leaping down onto the compost pile, and making a run for the herbs, all part of the unpredictable events that make funny farm life entertaining.
We call them the Houdini family. They’re actually related and they escape like synchronized swimmers of destruction. One distracts me with goat-level acrobatics while the other makes a beeline for the roses. Every. Single. Time.
And they never go quietly. Oh no. They announce their freedom with triumphant bleats and start knocking over anything mildly unstable. They’ve chewed through laundry lines, eaten the label off the olive oil jug, and once proudly dragged an entire cushion into the middle of the yard like it was a war trophy, adding to the amusing chaos of funny farm life.
But the best part? When I finally wrangle them back into the pen, sweating and cursing, they look at me like I’m the unreasonable one.
The chickens, meanwhile, watch the whole ordeal with the disdainful expression of proper citizens witnessing a jail break. Except Gertrude. She sometimes follows the goats. I think she might be trying to unionize.
Despite all of this—the goat invasions, the chicken politics, the constant drama
It’s feathered and fluffy and full of mud and mistakes and joy. It’s funny farm life, through and through. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything. Sure, it’s not peaceful. I wake up to squabbling hens and go to sleep double-checking goat enclosures. But it’s real. It’s honest. It’s feathered and fluffy and full of mud and mistakes and joy.
There’s something deeply comforting about sitting in the garden with a mug of coffee, watching the flock go about their chaotic little lives. A broody hen grumbling in her box. A goat peeking over the fence with mischief in her eyes. The rooster posing on top of a stump like he’s auditioning for a calendar.
They make me laugh every single day. And when the world feels too loud or too fast or too complicated, their little dramas remind me that sometimes all you need is a chicken and a warm patch of sunlight amidst the hilarity of farm life with its funny twists and turns.
Want to start your own backyard soap opera?
Check out the post A Beginner’s Guide to Backyard Chickens
