A chicken a day! Wyandotte this one first?

Chickens have been jumping out at me all over the place lately.

Not the real kind! Though I do work at a farm, all the boys in the poultry house (this year we have only roosters) are well-behaved.

I mean all sorts of chicken-y vintage things.

So, rather than buck-buck this observation, I’m just going to pluck up my courage and peck around here for a whole bunch of eggscellent poultry posts in the next couple of days.

Sorry if you hate bad puns! Don’t get your feathers all ruffled about it.

First of all, we’ve got this sweet toy hen. I think she was made in the late 1940s, when America had plenty of extra steel to make toys instead of Army tanks.

“My lovely white eggs are Jordan almonds. Buck!”

She’s made of heavy-gauge painted steel by Wyandotte Toys, which is kind of funny since there is an actual breed of chicken named “Wyandotte.” Wyandotte Toys seems to have specialized in cars, trucks, and planes, but they had a couple non-transportation toys too. I’ve seen another Wyandotte chicken that sits in a steel bowl painted to look like a nest!

How can you go wrong with “Made in USA”?

The paint on one side on is a little faded. It’s even more faded on the other side. Maybe she roosted for a long time in an attic window, or on top of someone’s kitchen cupboards in the sunshine.

And yes, she really does lay eggs! Pour a handful of jellybeans or marbles down the chute in her head, push down on her back, and a strong spring inside releases one “egg” at a time at her feet.

“Buck! I may have a square hole in my head, but my eggs are tasty!”

Guess I better go get some more jelly beans.