Once Upon a Flock
Page 2
When separated from the other chicks, even for a moment, she fell completely apart. Jenny was as easy to love as she was to laugh at.
As my obsessions rolled predictably along, I fell headfirst into my new flock. I picked up my camera
I spent every minute watching and playing with the babies, and I clicked my camera in rapid-fire mode.
Clearly our chicks were skilled in mind control. We melted under their powers. Dinner boiled over, homework went undone. Some afternoons I forgot to pick up Sarah from school. “I was running errands,” I explained, plucking bits of chick bedding out of my hair.
Marky watched our chicks with quivering lips.
I tried to introduce them to him as the books had advised, but this just made him drool and whimper. I had to face the fact that he was a terrier, bred to hunt, and that all things small and fuzzy are prey to him. As well trained as Marky was, he didn’t have the ability to control himself around these chicks. So whenever we took the chicks out to play on the floor, Marky was banished to the backyard.
The chicks quickly outgrew their bin. I scrounged in the attic among Danny’s lifetime collection of boxes and cartons and chose the large Sony Trinitron box that had waited nearly a decade for its purpose to come along.
The box gave them plenty of space to run around and spill their water and poop in their food, which they did nonstop. I felt it was time for the chicks to learn a thing or two about being chickens, so I built them a training roost.
They caught on to the roosting thing right away.
I pasted pictures of grown chickens on the wall in front of them,
so they could marvel at what they would become.
I cut a window and fitted it with clear plastic
so we could watch the chicks, and they could watch us.
When they outgrew their Trinitron box, I cut a doorway and duct-taped another room to it. I added another table and another lamp to the setup, and that was pretty much the end of our living room’s feng shui.
I kept snapping photos, hundreds a day, desperate to preserve the last ounce of cuteness for our memories.
And then all of a sudden, they turned hideous.
Well, all except Lil’White.
She remained cute as a button.
Cuteness has its price, however.
Lil’White had to put up with extra love and attention from Sarah and her friends because of her adorability factor.
Meanwhile Hatsy, Lucy, and Jenny had entered their gruesome stage. Scruffy feathers bulged out in all directions.
Red and white plumage emerged from Hatsy’s yellow fluff, and we still couldn’t figure out what breed she was. Sarah thought she might be a dinosaur; I was pretty sure she was a rooster.
The chicks’ gangly reptilian toes grew wicked toenails. Their poops, once cute nuggets, were now atrocious, reeking turds.
Birds form new feathers within a sheath, like a tiny drinking straw, and as the girls’ feathers grew, the sheaths crumbled into flakes and dander and dust.
The girls flapped around and ran laps inside their boxes, sending clouds of dust billowing all over the living room. And the dust stuck. To the walls. The furniture. The curtains. The ceiling. Us.
Friends still stopped by to see our darling chicks, but now they only stood in the doorway. They eyed the girls from across the room and then remembered that they couldn’t stay long.
Our house smelled like a barn. It was time to build that coop.
5
Henhouse
I descended to our basement garage and fired up my beloved power tools. I worked for three days and three nights, enjoying every whir of the drill, every whiff of sawdust, every Sponge-Bob bandage applied to my bloody wounds.
My design on paper was a rough one, and I hadn’t solved all the construction issues, but I played it by ear. I built the two long sides first, then the two short sides.
I had read that chicken wire is not a deterrent to some predators. Snakes and small rodents can squeeze through it, and raccoons can rip right in and snatch a panicking bird. So, instead, I chose to use hardware cloth, a welded wire mesh that is utterly impenetrable. It’s also about as dangerous and unwieldy to work with as razor wire.
I rolled out the hardware cloth to measure and cut it, and it curled right back onto itself and me, over and over again, piercing through all layers of clothing and even through my shoes. It took forever to cut the stuff and to fasten it to the coop, and it took just as long to stop the flow of blood from my countless gashes, scrapes, and puncture wounds.
But once it was in place, the mesh looked tidy and attractive, and I felt confident that this would prevent even the most crazed and ravenous predators from harming my girls.
When the four walls were finished, I dragged them out of the garage into the April sunshine to prop them up and put them all together.
My hastily sketched plans, however, hadn’t addressed this phase of construction. I had no idea how to put these walls together. I went back to the wondrous hardware store, took another fanciful jaunt up and down the aisles, and discovered exactly what I needed: metal brackets. Why had nobody ever mentioned these in woodworking class? Precise joinery and fine dovetails have their place, but this coop, my biggest building project ever, was going to stand erect only by the grace of hundreds of drywall screws and these awesome metal brackets.
I bought twice as many as I needed and was home in no time slapping those walls together. Moths danced around my head under the driveway spotlight, and Sarah and Danny watched me from the kitchen window, smiling and waving their approval with plastic spoons as they ate their dinner of cold cereal. I came inside at bedtime, then went back out the next morning and assembled the roof, making good use of those extra metal brackets. I planed and sanded the roosts so my girls wouldn’t get splinters in their delicate toes. I gave their ladder plenty of rungs for easy climbing.
In the garage, I opened all the cans of leftover house paint, lined them up, mixed this one with that one, and added a splash of Sarah’s acrylic craft paint to achieve the right hue. All the painting was done by nightfall. Since the coop needed to dry overnight, our family got to enjoy one last sentimental evening with the chickens in the living room. Hatsy stood on my shoulder and picked at the dried paint in my hair. Lucy gave herself a good shake, emitting a final massive explosion of dust. Jenny and Lil’White wandered together into the den and pooped on the floor.
The next morning I wheeled my spectacular mobile coop onto the lawn and brought the girls out to experience sunshine and a cool breeze for the first time.
Inside their beautiful coop, the girls cowered under a plastic stool.
Outside the coop, Marky stared at them and drooled.
I went in and sat down on the stool to help the girls adjust to their new environment. They quickly loosened up and began to explore.
Lil’White figured out how to tip over the feeder.
Hatsy gave my eyebrows a nice plucking.
With Marky’s encouragement, Hatsy learned to run up the ladder.
Getting back down was more of a challenge.
Lil’White couldn’t figure out the ladder at all, so I lifted her to the top and we did a little practicing.
That night, the girls slept in their new home, and I lay wide awake in my bed. Was the coop secure enough? Were the girls too cold? Would the heat lamp catch everything on fire? Had I latched the door? I got up and tiptoed out into the night to check on them. Twice.
And I was twice relieved and twice proud to find that all was well and that the flock was safe and comfortable. I had built them a nice home.
The next day I wheeled the coop to a new spot so the girls could have fresh grass, and the wheels fell off. But the rest of the coop was sound, so Danny helped me drag it to its permanent location at the far end of the yard.
I was only momentarily disappointed at the failure of those wheels, for now that the coop was immobile, a new mobile coop was in order. A new building project!
And so I did. It only took an afternoon.
In their new chicken tractor, the girls could scratch and peck wherever I wanted them to—and without getting their heads stuck between Marky’s teeth.
The flock’s very first summer was approaching, and new excitement was popping up every day. The girls discovered tangy dandelions, sweet clover, and lemony wood sorrel growing thick among the few blades of grass that I call my lawn.
Hatsy, always on the move, chased mosquitoes and moths and plucked them right out of the air. Lucy learned that worms taste like candy and that yellow jackets do not. Lil’White had no interest at all in worms. She preferred the satisfying crunch of a fresh beetle.
The girls were intrigued with my rakes and shovels and gardening gear. It was just a thrill a minute for these young ladies.
And the girls were young ladies. No longer chicks, they were now what you call pullets: young hens. They sported beautiful mature feathers, and their combs and wattles were starting to show. And while we had feared from the start that Hatsy might be a rooster, it was Jenny who crept up and surprised us.
Yes, Jenny, the screamingest cryingest baby.
6
Summertime
We had tried to ignore Jenny’s good-sized comb and wattles, but her feet were huge too, and her tail feathers were getting longer. Jenny outgrew all the crying and carrying on and adopted a proud and protective role. She wasn’t crowing yet, but we could no longer deny that she was a he.
Our town has very few written restrictions when it comes to keeping farm animals, even roosters. Farming is a part of Upton’s historic pride, and people here seem to take pride in our town’s lack of rules as well. Patricia had her chickens. She also had a llama, a flock of sheep, and several horses. Other friends across town kept rabbits and goats. Our neighbors had no problem at all with our raising a small backyard flock—in fact they were looking forward to tasting our homegrown eggs. But I just could not justify keeping a noisy rooster. I liked the neighbors too much to risk having them all hate me.
Jenny had to go.
Sarah was adamant that we find our rooster a proper, happy home. I agreed and assured her that there was no way I could chop Jenny’s pretty little head off, or allow anyone else to do such a thing. We would find Jenny a farm where she could live happily ever after.
I began searching websites like craigslist for someone who was looking for a nice rooster. Unfortunately, Jenny had a lot of competition in the rooster re-homing market. Craigslist displayed listings for dozens and dozens of roosters “free to a good home.” Trying not to feel discouraged, I continued my hunt. And as Jenny’s prospects for safe haven dwindled, her comb and wattles just kept on growing.
Soon she would begin to crow. Loudly. Day and night. I was sure that our once amiable neighbors would band together, a sleep-deprived mob brandishing knives and forks and bottles of chicken marinade, and I would barricade myself inside the coop with Jenny and the flock for our final standoff.
I continued to lose sleep over Jenny’s fate and our own until Sarah and her class went on a field trip to Farm School. Farm School is a working farm in Athol, Massachusetts, where groups of schoolchildren spend several days wallowing in farm life, right up to the very rims of their muck boots.
Sarah and her friends tended to the chickens and the pigs. They gardened. They drove oxen. They kissed calves, they planted seeds, and they shoveled all sorts of poop. Each night the kids fell exhausted into their bunks, and each morning they rose with the sun and did it all again.
It was a good old-fashioned idyllic learning experience.
When their time at Farm School was over, I drove out to pick up Sarah. I toured the farm and was impressed with the lovely flocks of chickens and their accommodations. I chatted with various staff members and casually asked if they might have room at the farm for a handsome Australorp rooster named Jenny. One young fella, Nick, told me he was starting a flock of his own, and he thought a Black Australorp roo might make a nice addition.
What a wonderful coincidence! I just happened to have such a rooster sitting in the backseat of my car. I opened the door, Jenny hopped out, Sarah and I jumped in, and we tore out of there before Nick could change his mind. Sarah and I wept a few tears on the way home. Sarah also pitched a fit, furious with me for giving up our beloved Jenny so abruptly. But deep down she knew that I had done it in Jenny’s best interest, and we were both comforted by the thought of proud Jenny heading up her own—I mean his own—herd of hens.
Back at home, Hatsy, Lucy, and Lil’White seemed to miss Jenny for a few days, but they rearranged themselves into a tidy flock of three and created a comfortable sisterly order. A pecking order.
Hatsy, the leader from the start, retained her top position. Lucy assumed position number two, and Lil’White settled for the spot at the bottom. I was pleased to find that their creation of a pecking order involved no pecking. The girls were very kind to one another, although Hatsy was a bossy gal and demanded dibs on the finest treats.
Hatsy and Lucy seemed pretty chummy, while Lil’White remained aloof. But all three enjoyed doing chicken things together as a good-natured flock.
I had assumed that my flock of chickens would spend carefree days just milling about, each one oblivious to the others. They’d peck and scratch and bump into each other and move on. So I was intrigued when I noticed that Lucy and Hatsy seemed to enjoy each other’s company.
These two girls sought each other out. They strolled around together, chatting agreeably about this and that. Lucy would reach over to straighten a feather on Hatsy’s back. Hatsy would pause and exclaim appreciatively. Then Hatsy would peck a crumb of food from the side of Lucy’s beak like a lady tenderly wiping a gob of potato salad off her friend’s cheek.
Lil’White mingled somewhat too, but she was an independent gal. She seemed comfortable among her friends but spent more time with her back to them than otherwise. Her Orpington plumage was breathtaking. I think Buff Orpingtons might just have twice as many feathers as other chickens.
And she never had a feather out of place, never a speck of poo on her voluptuous behind. Scratching and pecking all day and traipsing through goodness knows what with her bare toes, Lil’White’s feet remained pearly and spotless. She was the first one our friends noticed when they came to see my flock.
And she remained Sarah’s very favorite chicken.
Sarah couldn’t help but pick her up and smile into those vapid Orpington eyes.
Hatsy, who began her life as the most enormous chick, grew up to be the smallest hen in the flock. A dizzying sight, always in motion, Hatsy was the hunter.
When she had cleaned up all the bugs on the surface of the lawn, she started hunting beneath. With lightning-fast scratching of her pointy little toenails, she overturned great clumps of sod. Everywhere I wheeled the chicken tractor, Hatsy initiated a new excavation project, and she gouged ankle-twisting divots all over the yard.
Bugs weren’t her only quarry. I tried to remain calm the day Hatsy tore across the lawn with a snake squirming around her head.
Lil’White gave pursuit, but I don’t know what happened next because I couldn’t look.
My little orange dynamo Hatsy also laid our very first egg. She was way ahead of schedule. We had expected the girls to begin laying in their fifth or sixth month. Hatsy’s first egg came in her fourth month, completely unexpected.
As soon as she emerged from the nest box that memorable day, I peeked inside to see what on earth she had been up to in there.
I gasped when I saw it. I picked it up as if I had discovered the rarest of treasures. It was breathtakingly beautiful. It was egg shaped. It had an egglike color. It felt like an egg. It had some nice random speckles on it. It was … warm.
This first egg was far more exciting than I had ever expected it to be. The immense thrill that overcame me was embarrassing, even to myself, standing alone beside the nest box. I thanked Hatsy with sincerity, and cradling the egg in both hands, I carried it toward the house. Marky jumped and twirled at my feet, thinking Hatsy had laid him a new ball. I let him sniff it and told him it was mine. His tail dropped. In the kitchen, Sarah and Danny gathered to view our miracle. They, too, beamed and cooed. It was amazing. It was simply an amazing egg.
I set Hatsy’s awesome gift on a swatch of purple fabric on the kitchen table for all to view and appreciate. I took photos and e-mailed them to family and friends. The day after Hatsy laid that first lovely egg, she laid her second. The next day she laid the third, and she kept on going.