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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.
One Hundred Chickens and a Worm
Art Print
Whitlark, Kevin
Buy at AllPosters.com
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