Chicken Halloween Tidbits

When I need to think, I often find that getting away from the computer and going for a walk with our dog Tucker produces some surprisingly good ideas. At least I think they're good ideas. Such was the case, with the subject of this blog. Tucker and I were marching along on the leaf strewn trails near our home and I was thinking about how much I like the fall season and in particular Halloween. And if you are a frequent reader, you also know I like chickens. "That's it!" I thought. "I'll write about chickens AND Halloween!" I grew more excited as we walked. "There's got to be lot's of interesting tidbits combining Halloween and chickens." 

Well, after extensive "Googling" I'm here to tell you there's not much out there when it comes to Halloween and chickens. I thought I was starting off pretty well when I found out the following about that quintessential Halloween treat Candy Corn:

No. 1  
Invented by George Renninger, a candy maker at the Wunderle Candy Company of Philadelphia in the 1880s, Candy Corn was originally called "chicken feed" since back then, corn was commonly used as food for livestock (they even had a rooster on the candy boxes). 

After that, it was slim pickings. This is what I scraped up from the bottom of the barrel that was scary and involved chickens:

No. 2
Q: What kind of ghost haunts a chicken coop? 

A:  A Poultry Geist

No. 3
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is a 1966 American comedy-drama film starring Don Knotts as Luther Heggs, a newspaper typesetter who spends a night in a haunted house, which is located in the fictitious community of Rachel, Kansas. The working title was Running Scared.[1] The title is presumably a humorous variation of the film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).

No. 4

What does Alektorophobia mean? The fear of chickens. Something I can’t understand, but if I ever saw a chicken this big I could see where it would make you take pause.

No. 5
If a rooster is not present in a flock of hens, a hen will often take the role, stop laying, and begin to crow.

I find this last bit the most frightening of all, mostly because of how eerily unsettling a "hen crow" sounds. My husband and I have heard it. In the summer, early in the morning, lying in bed with the window open listening as our little world awakens. First we hear muffled thumps as our girls (hens) jump from their roost and land on the henhouse floor. Then, soft clucking as they emerge from the henhouse to welcome the new day. Then a jarring, loud "SQUAAAWWK!!!!" that makes you sit bolt up with your heart pounding. It doesn't sound remotely like the virtuous rooster "cock-a-doodle" but instead like someone is being murdered right out in the yard. Scary? Oh you better believe it.

Happy Halloween!

Mom and Me

11x14 inches, oil on linen canvas, 2017

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A easy-going mom with her curious foal on warm summer day.