This weekend’s mad panic was a LOOSE CHICKEN! No, a young Disney starlet was not roaming my neighborhood. She was a very handsome barred rock that did not belong to us. Generally, for reasons I can’t and don’t care to articulate, I don’t purchase the barred utility chickens. Boring! They are red tulips. Okay, I guess that was an articulette.
Marty McFly was kind of an exception, but he was a cochin. Maybe part of it too is that when I lived in Crown Hill there was a lady who lived across the alley (who lived in “GREENWOOD, thank you very much.”) and had about 23 barred rocks in a weenie space that were all pecking each other to death. Her chickenry was appalling.
Anyway, a nice neighbor knocked on the door, one who is across the street and came over to chat me up about my Xmas angel while I was out spraypainting my newest mirror for the mirror wall. We also talked to the lady with the Independent Dog and I think Moonpants might have been involved as well. Everyone was VERY CONCERNED about the homeless chicken.
I clean my coop, I throw my ladies scraps. I talk to them (they ignore me). They follow me when I am digging up bits of the yard. They always have plenty of chookchow and water, especially if it is hot or frozen out. But that is kind of where it ends. Generally chickens are content to stay near you if you raise them and feed them and provide a completely enclosed space OR a slightly ramshackle backyard that is reasonably fenced. But I am not going to stand over them going PRECIOUSSSS or tag them. Chickens run away. They get themselves eaten.
I think the neighbors were far more concerned about this vagabond chicken then I ever would be. Independent Dog lady trotted up to me as I was leaving with the girls for a family march around and said “We found the chickens home!!” and I blanked for just a minute.
“Oh GOOD, GOOD,” I said, brain caboose finally having caught up to the engine.
“We just wanted to let you know.”
“Thanks.”
This weekend I have also started a Good Behavior During the Arsenic Hour star chart for someone who actually tries to figure out how many people she could drop into a volcano all at once and how to build machines that “could beat the police, all of them.” I am going to save it for when the media comes to my door 30 years from now and the caption Mother Of Supervillian appears under my name on the news later that night.
“I TRIED!” I will say, shoving a greasy and rumpled paper through the crack in the chained door. “Here is her star chart from when she was five!”
Woe, for I will never be referred to by the news media as either “Elder Super-Villain” nor even “Father of the Super-Villain”. My child simply does not have enough nascent evil in her heart. Lord knows I’ve tried.
We’re giving up our chickens in a week. I feel… conflicted. Somebody hold me! *crickets*
I don’t like being without chickens!
1. I love your kitties. They look like mine (little pink noses, little white chins, little boogery-appearing doots under said little pink noses).
2. I love your kids. I wish they were my little sisters. I feel I have a lot to offer in the Big Sister Department (Only Child Syndrome).
3. Now for the odd question… do you eat your chickens? WOULD you eat your chickens? Or are they strictly egg layers? I’ve been thinking about keeping some chickens (when I get out of this godforsaken city I’m in), and have been wondering what I’d do with the clucks when their egg-laying abilities dry up. I’ve been told I don’t have the won tons to kill chickens, but that was from someone who isn’t terribly familiar with my grew-up-on-a-farm childhood, whereupon once I supped on a cow named Dinner and then dissected his heart for my home-school science class (ok, that didn’t last long; I was back in regular, albeit private, school, shortly after that). Sigh.
What’s your take on this?
HELLO. I thought I was wontonless as well, but after a while I came to see them as what they are (to me): eggbag livestock. I am an enemy of PETA.
Right now I have three chickens that are not laying, but I am saving them because I am getting new chicks in the spring and I want the old ladies to be teachers and meatshields in case there is trouble. Plus I have the room.
I choose chickens for a mix of affability (no attacking the children), egg laying, and prettiness, in that order. I don’t raise “utility” meat/egg birds. Just eggs! Just pretty, funny, mostly brainless decorations that will have a pretty good life in my garden in exchange for eggs.
I gotcha. I like eggs. I’m a big fan of chickens, as well. I’m tempted by the easter-eggers, but in general, I’d just like to have some fresh eggs, raised by ME, for the cooking. Cool! I don’t know anyone who has chickens, so I thought I’d ask you. Very helpful info.
Well, stay tuned, if you like. In a couple of months there will be chick nonsense here. :D Ask away anytime.