If we'd had any sense, we might have watched them on a fine day go and sit on the compost heap and sun themselves, and then have concluded that if they liked light and heat outside, they'd like it inside.

Poor biddies, they were so cold that they wouldn't lay us any eggs in winter." "You take a great interest in your poultry, don't you auntie ?" said Miss Laura.
"Yes, indeed, and well I may.

I'll show you my brown Leghorn, Jenny, that lay eggs enough in a year to pay for the newspapers I take to keep myself posted in poultry matters.

I buy all my own clothes with my hen money, and lately I've started a bank account, for I want to save up enough to start a few stands of bees.

Even if I didn't want to be kind to my hens, it would pay me to be so for sake of the profit they yield.
Of course they're quite a lot of trouble.