Optimistic Chickens 26/03/10
We got ourselves some chickens towards the end of last year as part of our effort to live more sustainably. We were thinking of fresh eggs and compost. What we weren’t expecting was characters. My friends think I’ve gone a little nutty as I now like to talk about the chickens and what they get up to. Well, quite frankly, I do, and mostly because they are such a surprise packet. So let me bend your ear a little about chickens, ours in particular. We got ourselves three chickens, which was all the stock that our local nursery, New Leaf, had left. I had read chickens are very socialable animals and three is the minimum recommended number to keep. Trick was, I read this just before going to get them, so where Shaun was expecting to come home to two new chickens, he found three. No real surprises there though, as Shaun knows me well enough to know that when I do something, I like to go in boots and all. So I think eyes might have rolled, but he quickly moved on.
Chaba and I then tasked ourselves with the all important job of naming said chickens. So we sat and watched them mill around for about an hour as we discussed our options. We came to the conclusion that a themed naming approach would be appropriate, so we considered cities we’d travelled to, cities we wanted to travel to but ultimately landed on one of our favourite things – ice cream flavours. You can tell Shaun wasn’t within earshot of this decision making process, as he is no great ice cream fan. So once that was decided, we watched them for a little longer to see what characteristics revealed themselves (we mustn’t have had much to do that afternoon). Chaba’s favourite flavour is chocolate, so he jumped the gun and said one had to be called Chochie and promptly chose the one he could easily identify, as it was a lighter colour, and claimed it as his own. So then we focused on differentiating the other two seemingly identical birds. As we watched them, we noticed that one was very laid back and cool in her approach to life, not rushing in get all the seed but assessing the situation first. So we named her after my favourite ice cream flavour – mango. That left the other chicken, who we decided then had to be Shaun’s (poor Shaun, he really shouldn’t have left the yard as these big decisions were unfolding). She was bossy and bull at a gate and working very hard to establish herself as the queen of the roost. Shaun would probably argue that it sounds a lot like me, in fact, and Mango’s character more like his own. Anyway, Chaba felt that Rocky (aka Rocky Road but probably more akin to the famous boxer) was the perefect name for this chicken and so we were done.
We were initially timid chicken owners, having built a small run and letting them out of the coop to roam the length and breadth of their six square metre domain. Then one afternoon, soft touch that I am, I thought they should have a little evening stroll around the entire front garden. That first twilight meander passed without incident, so we gave them two hours of freedom the following afternoon and so on. On the fourth day, the mild mannered, seemingly content Mango made a run for it. Unbeknowns to us, she had been biding her time and digging a small tunnel under the fence. When we weren’t looking, she slipped through and made her way to visit the chicken that lives two doors down. It was then we realised that the movie Chicken Run, was in fact a documentary.
The chickens now are permanent free rangers (we eventually solved the fence issue after Mango made three more successful escape bids, once showing up at our front door) and so when we arrive at the gate with a bucket of grain or garden scraps, they come bolting over, full of hope. But it is the way they move that reminds me of Chicken Run every time. They spread their wings and labour side to side as if they way 200 pounds, taking great and purposeful steps towards the incoming treats. Its quite a sight and almost worth putting a video capability on this blog site just to show you. What also amazes me is how eternally optimistic they are. We can bring them a big bowl of the best kitchen scaps this side of Masterchef and they will abandon the feast and race after you one you’ve place it down, just in case some even more scrumptusous taste awaits. Even if I’m jsut moving around the garden, putting their poo under the lemon tree or watering the spinach, they cluster around my feet at every step, racing forward to meet each footfall in the hope of something better. Where do they get this sense of possibility from?? Day after day its the same. They get their food first and then we move on to other duties; cleaning the water, picking up some fallen braches, collecting the eggs. Yet they never fail to follow, searching our hands for hidden treats. They’ve lept up and had a go at why wedding ring a few times, but have come away disappointed.
A few weeks ago, Rocky somehow fell off the perch as queen of the roost. Our theory is that Mango has become the outstanding performer in the yard, sometimes laying two eggs a day and somehow lords this over Rocky and Chochie. Not only was Rocky no longer the first to muscle in on the kitchen scraps when they hit the grass, she was even expelled from the coop. We found her one night tucked away next to one of the raised veggie beds, hidden in the grass. We checked on her for a few nights and it seemed to be her new evening abode, so we put a little roof on the spot to keep the dew off and she seemed happy enough. During the day, she kept to herself a bit, which is unusual for a chicken, socialites that they are. Then four days ago, she cut from the crew all together, slipped through the side gate somehow and wandered up into the back graden where our two cocker spaniels, Cleo and Toby, live. I will spare you the details, but I’m very sad to report we only now have to flavours of ice cream roaming the front yard. I was probably disproportionally distressed by her death, but I’m missing her still.
