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The Good Stuff
Short Story
5 Hens and 1 Rooster
by B. A. Llewellyn
Length: 2388 words

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5 Hens and 1 Rooster

Our first home came equipped with half a dozen baby chickens.  The previous owner had removed several adult chickens but he’d met the “nice, young couple” buying his house and decided we needed to start our life on the land properly - with these young chicks.  He even left us their rat-infested cages.

We didn’t want chickens.  We didn’t know what to do with chickens.  Especially baby chickens!  And we certainly didn’t want rat-infested buildings standing so close to our own abode.  Our new, and very old, home was already crawling in cockroaches and red-back spiders … rats were not allowed onto that list!  Down came the buildings … smashed, annihilated, taken to the dump.  But one building must stay … because we have chickens.

This lonely and dilapidated building is thoroughly cleaned and lovingly restored.    We have no intention of caging our feathered charges, but we know they need to have a place to sleep and lay eggs, and to call their own. We hope our chooks will be happy to spend most of their time here.  We are very naïve.

We talk to the local vet.  He doesn’t bother telling us that we have a lot to learn about chickens.  He tells us all is well.  He tells us that we merely need to provide the chickens with a few basics and, as they’re free-rangers, just let them be.

We breathe a huge sigh of relief.  This should be a breeze.  We will simply let our chickens out of their caged suite in the morning then they will wander and peck our acreage, go back to their sleeping quarters for rest doing the day and night, and somewhere in that time lay their eggs.  It sounds downright easy.

Have you ever noticed how often the “downright easy” becomes downright painful?  It’s the “five minutes down the freeway” syndrome.  The journey on the freeway may be five minutes, but the 30 minutes getting to and from the freeway is the challenge.

Having chickens follow us everywhere we went was our challenge.  Being young chickens, they obviously still needed parental consideration.  They considered us Mum and Dad.  They considered we owed them our consistent love and attention.

Even when they grew up they still considered us to be the relatives.  They missed us whenever we left our home.  They would come running from acres away as soon as they saw our car returning.  They could fly, but they seemed to prefer running.  Why do birds do so much walking and running?

It sounds very sweet.  It sounds very cute.  And you’re quite right, our five chickens and one rooster were very endearing ... sometimes.

But, and it’s a big but, every morning our rooster demanded to be released with the rising of the sun.  He didn’t care what was happening to the weather.  He didn’t care how little sleep we’d shared.  He didn’t care if we were sick.  He merely knew we needed to respond to his orders as quickly as possible.  He was a real tyrant.

He was also ridiculously canny.  He knew wherever we were in the house and would stand under the nearest window, yelling his desire for our company.  Roosters are very loud.  You’ve possibly heard a rooster crow in a movie.  Hollywood roosters cock-a-doodle-do at exactly the right pitch, and sound level, for human consumption and they only sing out for a maximum of two calls.

Life is not like Hollywood.  You most probably already know this fact but, my goodness, it was a shock for us.  We sincerely believed that roosters were supposed to wake up, say “cock-a-doodle-do” and leave it at that until the next morning.  We certainly didn’t suspect that they would stalk their humans around the house, creating a right royal to-do, demanding loudly for our attention.

We must have spoilt our rooster as a youngster, but how were we to know that his childhood behaviour would continue into his adulthood.  We thought maturity would quieten our rooster down and give him other things to think about.  He had a harem of lovely chicken-ladies following him without question, each one of them very chatty and charming.  Why didn’t he devote himself completely to them?

Which brings up another challenge we faced.  Throughout our entire chicken owning experience, we found only 5 eggs … by pure accident.  Each of the five eggs was found separately, over several months.  Each egg had gone past its “use by” date by the time it was found.  Each egg was hidden in vegetation … hidden being the operative word.  We never did quite figure out the whole ”free range” thing. 

Our birds became neighbourhood characters.  They were not content with their own protected land so they started to roam freely whenever Mum and Dad left home.  The olive orchard across the road was a favourite spot.  Our neighbour didn’t mind their occasional intrusions and scrounging, but the road in the middle wasn’t as friendly and caused us chicken-parents a bit of a worry. 

All jokes about chickens and their desire to cross the road aside, chickens really do have no road sense whatsoever.  It’s easy to understand why they cross the road ... there’s something edible on the other side.  It’s just really difficult to know how they manage to stay alive while they’re doing the whole “let’s cross the road even if there’s a huge, car-shaped monster bearing down on us” thing. 

Our car would return to our run-down and well loved home, and we would see our chickens running towards us, literally falling over each other in their rush to reach their parents.  It was rather endearing in one way, while also being downright dangerous in another.  Our chickens and rooster never once checked to see if it was safe to walk onto the black asphalt.  It was a lonely street and there weren’t many cars but we witnessed some very near accidents.  So did our neighbours.  The neighbours weren’t keen on having chickens as a road hazard even if they did find our birds rather endearing.  We were asked to “do something” about their wondering habits.

The final chicken-straw came during two days of heavy rain.  We were, of course, woken at the crack of dawn on these two miserable days.  We did, of course, cover our “I don’t want to leave the house” bodies in raincoats and gumboots to tramp into the deluge to ensure our birds were fed and well covered.  We did not, of course, expect our hens and rooster to consider this sort of loving attention to be not even close to enough loving attention.

It is at this point in time that “The Possum” must be mentioned.  Our home had come equipped with “The Possum” as well as the five chickens and one rooster.  “The Possum” is a story in her own right, but she now joins the chickens because it was the combination of “The Possum” and the five chickens and one rooster that was about to push us beyond our limit.  The rooster, hens and possum were about to show us why we shouldn’t be sharing our home with them.

As mentioned, there were two full days and nights of torrential rain.  It was miserable out in the wet and grey.  It was warm and dry and cosy inside our newly renovated home, even though we still hadn’t boxed in the eaves or insulated the space above the ceilings.  “The Possum” made its way in and out by the open eaves and lived in the space above the ceilings, near the back of the house.  Our bathroom, toilet and work area were at the back of the house.  During these two particularly wet and miserable days and nights, our possum decided it was far too wet to go outside to urinate.  It stayed inside the roof and sat above a crack in our ceiling.  It urinated.  It sent its golden, acrid wee showering down into the small work area between the toilet and the bathroom.

We stood in our hallway witnessing this desecration of our sacred living space.  We were silent with shock and outrage.  Then, with an impeccable sense of bad timing, while we were still standing open-jawed and stunned, our rooster decided he’d had enough of being a bird.  An almighty screeching “cock-a-doodle-do” summoned us to the front door.

The rooster was on the front door step with all his ladies closely bunched behind him on our small verandah.  Sir Rooster tried to push past us as we opened the door.  Sir Rooster and Dame Hens were not content with their own abode.  They loudly insisted on their right to share our nice, warm house.  Maybe they wanted to sit in front of the fire with Mum and Dad, and play board games.  Maybe they wanted to be cuddled until the storm passed.  Maybe they wanted us to turn them into humans so they could live inside with Mum and Dad permanently!

Whatever their reasoning, it was unacceptable.  Chickens were not going to live inside our newly carpeted home.  Chickens are chickens.  They are not human, no matter how much they want to be. 

The sun eventually resurfaced to reveal a wet and muddy world … and a verandah covered in slippery, slimy, smelly chicken excrement.  The old couch on the verandah was also covered in slippery, slimy, smelly chicken excrement. The chickens would have to go!

The back of our house had already been thoroughly cleaned, but the possum urine- smell lingered.  The possum would have to go! 

The possum was caught with the help of a large cage and an apple.  It was taken by car over several bodies of water, because our vet told us that possums inevitably return to their first abode unless they are taken over several bodies of water.  We were fond of our possum, but we definitely did not want it returning to its original abode … and us.  The possum was released into a beautiful nature reserve, with lots of lovely trees and foliage.  It ran straight up a tree, looking immediately comfortable with its new surroundings.  We breathed a sigh of relief, and drove home to our chickens.

We advertised our desire to give our hens and rooster away, for free, to a good home.  We needed fellow vegetarians, who knew far more about hobby farming than we chicken-parents, to take on the responsibility of our demanding birds.

Bingo!  A phone call, a conversation and we have resolution ... almost.  First we have to experience the trauma of parting.

The soon-to-be new owner of our chickens seems like a nice man.  He is a crop farmer, but he likes chickens.  He already owns a few free rangers and he thinks they’re beautiful birds.  When he heard about our offer, he knew our birds were meant to come and live with him and his family.  He arrives with his adolescent son.  It is night-time.  He tells us night-time is the best time for catching chickens.

Father and son know exactly what to do.  They walk confidently into our birds’ roost with a strong flashlight.  They grab the legs of five hens and one rooster and stuff each bird into a big hessian bag.  Father and son had caught chickens before.  Father and son had been taught all normal chickens are very calm if you catch them at night, using the mesmerising light of a powerful torch. 

But our chickens are not normal.  They are not the same as all other hens and roosters.  Our birds do not know they are chickens.  They think they are our children.  They were not very calm.  They were not even vaguely calm.  They carried on as if they were being kidnapped, and they had to let Mummy and Daddy know so we could save them.  They had no idea we were actually in the process of saving them from Mummy and Daddy’s complete lack of knowledge and competency.

It was very traumatic.  The birds were upset and there was no way we could explain to them the reasons for their removal to their greater good.  We could only watch.  And cry ... well, I cried.

The farmer and his son put the big hessian bag, full of birds, into the safety of their van.  Father and son stressed their need to hurry, so they could release their new charges into safety and comfort as quickly as possible.  We were thankful for their concern, but we still stood at the window of their van, waiting for words of comfort.  Thank goodness words of comfort were given.

We were informed our hens and rooster were to be the special friends of the farmer’s son.  The farmer said he was very proud of his boy.  The farmer’s son had shown himself responsible and caring with their established free rangers.  Our birds were his reward. 

The farmer’s son earnestly promised me he would take good care of our five hens and one rooster.  His young face was filled with an endless smile.  He was obviously very happy with his reward.  His father promised again that the birds would be treated with love and respect, and never eaten by humans.  We couldn’t ask for more.

Farmer and son drove off, with our birds.  The farmer’s son waved goodbye until we could no longer see them.  They were gone.  Our hens and our rooster were gone. 

I wish I could say that we went through a mourning period, wondering if we had done the right thing ... but we didn’t.  We knew our birds were safe.  We knew they would be happy.  And there were other benefits.

Next morning we slept all the way through to eight o’clock.  It was the longest sleep we had enjoyed since moving into our home.  It was good.  Every morning from that rooster free day, we woke up to own inner alarms and we continued to relish our reclaimed personal freedom.  Of course, it helped a lot to know that our birds were living the good life, and possibly even supplying eggs to the new owners.  But we had learnt our lesson.  We now know that it is much easier to find free-range eggs at the supermarket … much easier than owning five hens and one rooster.
 

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