Meet the New Campus Chicks at URI

The girls enjoy some scratching time. Photograph courtesy of Mary Parlange.

The coolest new kids at the University of Rhode Island are just like any other students: They like to hang out together, bask in the sun’s rays and roam throughout campus, making friends and posing for selfies with nearly everyone they meet. Unlike most college students, however, these chicks love to rise early, will do almost anything for a mealworm, and are in for the evening well before twilight. Meet the URI chickens: four hens all lovingly tended to by Mary Parlange, chicken whisperer in training and wife of URI President Marc Parlange. The flock is made up of Honey and new additions Netflix, Hulu and Disney (aka Dizzy).

Dizzy performs a trick with Mary Parlange. Photograph by Dana Laverty.

“I named them because I knew there was going to be drama,” Mary says. (Alas, spunky Henrietta — who had survived a hawk attack — died in early June after being hit by a car.) They live in a run and a shed converted into a coop outside the president’s house on the Kingston campus, and love to roam during the day, preferring the sunny environs of nearby Green and Swan halls. “They’re so much happier when they’re allowed to range,” Mary says, adding they often do so with their feline brothers Ruckus and Achilles in tow. They came from the school’s Peckham Farm, a mix of a few different egg-laying breeds like Rhode Island Reds, white leghorns, New Hampshire Reds and barred rocks.

Dizzy picks out a Keaney blue Post-it note. Photograph by Dana Laverty.

They can even do tricks — they walk in circles and pick out Keaney blue-colored Post-it notes in exchange for mealworms. Come spring, you won’t find them on the Oozeball field, but they’ll most definitely be taking an occasional dust bath or two. You can keep up with their fowl shenanigans on Instagram at @uri_chickens.

Hanging out at Green Hall. Photograph courtesy of Mary Parlange.