Coffin quoted in BDN article on chicken that breaks into home to lay egg

Donna Coffin, an educator with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, was quoted in a Bangor Daily News article about Kate McCormick’s 6-month-old Dominique egg-laying hen’s new routine at her Waldo homestead. “I was awake and the back door was open and before I knew it, I could hear a chicken walking up the stairs in my house,” she said. “I quietly went up to see and saw her go into the bedroom, hop on a stool, jump onto the bed and lay an egg.” It has now become an almost daily occurrence, and when the door is not open, McCormick said the chicken will peck at it from the outside or leap into the air and flap her wings against the door’s glass window. Human-chicken bonding is not all that unusual, according to Coffin. “Many pets bond with their humans, including chickens,” Coffin said. “Chickens, like most animals, can be trained by positive reinforcement, [and] chickens learn fast.” Coffin said chickens like to lay eggs in quiet, dark spaces. “I think a bedroom might meet those criteria,” she said.