TheBanyanTree: hope sings and chicken dreams

[Julie Anna Teague]

> The new batch of chickens arrived today.  

Ah!  I am envious!  I miss my happy flock of Rhode Island Reds, their chicken
chatter, their funny little dance as they scraped around for bugs in the garden,
and their delicious eggs.  But I don't miss unfreezing their water every day in
the winter or cleaning out the coop poop.  And I really don't miss cleaning up
dead chicken bodies after another bloody raccoon attack--it is so sad to see
them killed.  But I just got my Murray McMurray catalog
(http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html if you've a mind to) and was
dreaming of having another sweet little flock--maybe some Araucanas that lay
colored eggs, or some of the striking Silver Laced Wyandottes, and of course the
Reds that I've come to love.  

As it is, we just have our Penny left, the lone rusty red chicken who has all
but become a house chicken.  If I could come up with some sort of chicken
diaper, or if she could be litter trained (and I swear, this chicken might be
smart enough) I would let her inside with us.  She has been inside a couple of
times.  Once she pushed through the porch screen door and let herself in.  I
found her pecking at the tan berber carpet like it was curly dead grass. 
Another time I came into the house to find her scooting around the kitchen, and
the boyfriend looking guilty and stricken at the same time.  "I had to do
something," he said, "there was a chicken hawk after her!"    

Penny is free to range, of course, and has been smart enough to evade all mean
critters.  She ranges over to the next door neighbor's yard from time to time. 
My neighbor Betty's 90 year old mother lives with her and is pretty much
confined.  (Betty's mom got out one day and I found her in my backyard in a
black wool sweater on a 95 degree summer day, about to have a heat stroke and
without a clue in the world as to where she was.)  Penny goes over and prances
in front of her sliding glass doors, and Betty reports that it makes her mother
very happy.  I find it a hopeful thought that Penny may reincarnate as a kind
and gentle person in her next life, and I will meet her.    

When the nights started getting colder, Penny moved out of her pine tree in the
front yard and into a luxury suite in the garage, next to the water heater. 
This meant constant chicken poop in the garage, which didn't make any of us
happy, and so we attempted to get her set up in a little condo out by the barn.
 But she would have none of that.  It was too far away from us, her new flock. 
We were chasing her around the yard for up to half an hour each night just to
get her in there.  She would give us the stink eye every time, and I swear, a
chicken giving you the stink eye can make you believe in voodoo curses.  So we
gave up, let her move back into the garage, and just clean up the poop.  We are
weak-willed and soft-hearted where this chicken is concerned.   

She brings us joy every day.  She makes us laugh.  When she's lonely, she pecks
at a window for attention.  She vocalizes her appreciation for every scrap of
food we give her, and we do tend to spoil her with treats like fruit and
spaghetti and fresh corn.  (Some friends--who shall remain nameless but you know
who you are--tried to treat her to beer and cigarettes.)  We began to worry that
she was not going to be with us for long, but I did a little research and it
seems she could live for up to seventeen years.  Wow.  I had no idea. Our pretty
Penny.  She's not a flock, but she's a real good chicken.    

Julie

  






Picked them up on the way to
> work... I walked into the post office and heard them chirping from the
> back room.  Really sweet sound.   Left them in the truck, R came a
> half an hour later, took them home, and did the "scatter feed on the
> newspaper and wet their beaks so they know where the water is"
> routine.  Out of the box he had to put one chick down, it had a
> broken/dislocated leg.  Well, one foot was pointing 180 degrees the
> wrong way and the chick's eyes were already glazed (I can explain
> 'glazed' if you want).  Anyway, events occur.
> 
> So.  I'm at work and the way I understand the story, he 'bout wore
> himself out over the chicks.  Says he had to check on them every 20
> minutes or so.  I think this is really funny... Mr. Shoot All The Damn
> Critters To Get Them Off The Feed Bill is stressing on baby chicks.
> "But they are cute" he says.  Then he had to go to work for a bit.
> 
> I came home to an empty house, got a beer, changed clothes, checked
> e-mail (nothing WaS but I did win a nice auction on eBay), fed the
> woodstove, got a beer and went to see the chicks.  Yeah, R did a great
> job.  And of course the chicks /are/ cute.  But...  I ordered 12 each
> Black Star and Red Star (at 2.04 each) , and 12 Leghorns (at 1.95
> each), all females.  Plus the 'free rare chicken'.  FreeRare is not a
> Polish like last time.  Thank You Very Much, I don't need another
> chicken that stupid ever again.  I don't know what FreeRare is but he
> (I'm sure it's a he) is the largest chick in the entire group.  Maybe
> he will crow pretty.  Anyway, to cover "shipping losses", I was
> expecting like 13 of each kind + FreeRare, like 40 chicks in all.  Ok?
> 
> R says there are 55 chicks.  I didn't unpack the chicks and counting
> baby chicks that are running around in a four by four foot box is like
> counting droplets of mercury in a bowl.  Best I can tell, I received
> 12 Black Stars, 13 Red Stars, and a TON of Leghorns.  Huh, maybe they
> had some extra Leghorns to get rid of?
> 
> 55 chicks minus the one R had to put down and minus the Red Star that
> was not doing at all well when I got home... the one I cupped in my
> hand to get warm for an hour or so and decided to bring into the house
> to get it warm by the woodstove (like I need a house chicken?)(on
> carpet? with Wilma?) and remember that 2nd beer?  I was about to
> burst.  Well, it's not easy to do the zipper and underwear stuff with
> one hand.... but in the time it took to get from the barn to the EDC
> and find a basket of feathers (for a nest), the chick woke up and got
> all bright eyes like it was finally warm enough and Yeah! I feel
> good!....  So I get to the house, do my stuff, chick is still looking
> around, I walk from the bathroom to the livingroom, maybe 30 feet and
> sit on the sofa, the chick says 'chirp', nestles down and goes to
> sleep.  Cute.  I guess she got warm enough.  Says 'peep' a couple of
> minutes later... and a few minutes later, well...  head rolls over and
> shitshitshit.  shitshitdamn.
> 
> It's all part of having critters.
> 
> So... I have 53 chicks.  If they all live through the night.  Plus
> another 18 chickens.
> 
> Oy.  And when they all start laying in 4.5 to 5 months from now...
> minus out four roosters, I could be collecting up to 67 eggs a day.
> 
> 
> paul
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