This chick is ready for her close-up

December 10, 3:52 PMLA Pet Rescue ExaminerKate Woodviolet

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Edwina, while not a resident of the hen cam run, displays true chicken charisma 
Photo: Terry Golson

At this festive time of year, particularly in L.A., where the goodwill flows like bile, it can be helpful to have a refuge – a soothing activity wherein cannot be found the words “holiday,” “thirty percent off” or “worst sales season on record."

For this much-needed spiritual sanctuary I cannot recommend highly enough – the hen cam.  Brainchild of author Terry Golson, it is a model of truth in advertising and narrative economy.  It’s a webcam where you can look at hens (and a lone lop-eared rabbit named Candy who, if she doesn’t think she actually is a chicken, certainly has a great time teasing her feathered roommates).

Buffy the Buff Orpington, one of the hen
cam highlights  Photo: Terry Golson

What can you see on the hen cam?  Well, as advertised, you can see hens, three White Leghorns named Coco, Eggers and Betsy Ross; LuLu, a Sussex; a beautiful Buff Orpington named Buffy; and Marge and Petunia, two New Hampshire Reds.  Site creator Golson creates affectionate bios of her famous hens, as well as providing detailed insight into what it takes to keep them.  This includes helpful and candid information on the types of maladies that occasionally afflict the hens, useful for those contemplating their own foray into chicken keeping.

But, like all great entertainment, the hen cam also offers that element of, if not conflict, then at least mammalian incursion, in the form of Candy the lop-eared rabbit.  Candy’s a furry mischief-maker who scuttles amongst the chickens and who, according to Golson, loves to plant herself in the coop door just to flummox hens trying to get in or out.

Why do I like watching chickens?  Being a city kid, I’ve known very few chickens personally, and they still seem like such magical creatures (if any animal who poops that much can be considered magical).  When properly cared-for, as Golson’s obviously are, chickens are beautiful, with such diverse colors and forms, and they have such acute, intelligent faces – so similar and yet so different from my well-known and somewhat better understood cats and dogs.

Lest this all sound too bucolic and placid for the jaded movers and shakers of L.A., let me assure you that the hen cam packs its share of drama.  Witness the day a month or two ago when the pumpkin arrived.  To say there was a frenzy of excitement is not to overstate things, with hens (literally) flocking around to inspect this bright and hopefully edible newcomer.  Surprisingly, that pumpkin lasted a couple of days, in spite of the hens’ not-too-benevolent attentions.  But apparently they were just pacing themselves, because recently when a new pumpkin appeared, in the immortal words of General Patton, “They knew what to do.”  Poor pumpkin never knew what hit it…  There was orange, fleshy carnage everywhere.

How can a chicken cross the road when there's a
bunny blocking the way?  Photo: Terry Golson

Why is the hen cam so entertaining?  Well, with the East coast three hours ahead, and the truncated daylight at this time of year, it’s like looking at a day in fast-forward; the light changes so quickly you almost get to experience a mini-day within your normal L.A. day.  And, as a transplanted Easterner who does not count East Coast weather among things for which I wax nostalgic, rain and snow via webcam is, as far as I’m concerned, the only kind of rain and snow in which I’m interested.  Via webcam it’s picturesque, in real life it’s just cold.  Then again, as a longtime resident of West L.A. it may just be that it’s a novelty to see that much square footage without a Starbucks on it.

And apparently chickens and urban/suburban chicken keeping is poised to become the next big thing, as suggested by the appearance of not one, but two articles in the L.A. Times on the subject in the same day.  Golson herself tells me that L.A is packed with “hencamers” and says, “It seems that my girls brighten the day of those stuck in cubicles downtown.”

And for at least one writer stuck in a drafty office in Torrance.