Chicken Tales

   ~ by Liz M. Forbes of The Chemainus Writers

"What you need are chickens," a friend said. "I know someone who's getting rid of their bantams." We had come from the city, primed with back to the land books, Harrowsmith Magazine, books on subsistence farming - they all talked glowingly about hens eating bugs in the veggie garden, fresh eggs for breakfast – we were ready for chickens.

"You don't need a chicken coop," my friend said, "banties look after themselves." The bantams arrived. Four scrawny little birds, barely a mouthful each poured from the sack, squawking and clucking as they shook their tail feathers and ruffled themselves into scratching mode. The sun danced off the iridescent tail feathers of the two slightly larger bantams – the creamy coloured one strutted and preened, behaving as if this were his domain, which we soon discovered it was. We had two roosters and two hens, hardly fair odds. Tod was in charge and Jake the golden brown rooster had to take the leavings.

The banties roosted in the trees and hid their eggs in nests hollowed from the long grass – we watched where they came and went in order to find the eggs. The hens eluded us many times and proudly emerged with a trail of baby chicks. They were fierce and protective mothers. Our flock soon grew but we had tired of searching for eggs and when someone offered us a chicken house we accepted with alacrity. We discovered that farm people always had offers to rid themselves of excess – along with the chicken house came two more roosters. Jake and Tod had a working agreement around their flock and the new arrivals caused quite an upset as they grew into maturity. We had more than enough hens now to satisfy four roosters – I knew this wasn’t proper farming but the roosters were beautiful and the new ones weren’t aggressive. The new cockerels managed to lure a few hens away from the group with the crowing, scratching performance they put on to announce a cache of succulent bugs for the girls to eat. If they were lucky they would have time to throw themselves at the hens, mount them quickly before Jake or Tod, who were half the size, flew over in a rush of squawks and flying feathers to assert their dominance. They spent more time protecting the hens and less and less time fertilizing them and soon most of the bantie influence disappeared.

We now had a fairly, normal chicken operation with a variety of chickens. I took any bird given to me. They had acres of land to roam and thousands of organic bugs to eat. My vegetable garden was fenced – chickens have no place in a vegetable garden, I discovered, as they eat more than bugs. The hens laid their eggs in the chicken house and everything was running smoothly until I forgot to close them in one night. A dreadful racket of chickens screeching woke me – I jumped into my gumboots, which were by the door and raced to the henhouse. A racoon had a chicken in his mouth. I furiously, without thinking, grabbed the racoon by the scruff of his neck and crying and yelling shook him until he dropped the hen. At that point I looked down and realized that except for the pair of gumboots, I was stark naked. I don’t know who was more shocked, the racoon or me. My predicament sunk in – how to deal with the racoon without getting hurt. The main chicken house door had swung closed – if I bent down to shove the racoon out the low opening at floor level, he would be dangerously close to parts of my anatomy of which I was quite fond. I had to get rid of this racoon fast while I still had him gripped in both hands. Shaking him seemed to stun him before, so gathering courage, well, fear, I shrieked, "Get out", gave him a quick shake and flung him out the small chicken door. I dared any racoon to go after my chickens again.

Jake and Tod continued to fly into the fir tree at dusk, flapping and cackling as they worked their way to the top. Sometimes at night when the racoons were hunting, we would hear Jake or Tod squawking and falling from branch to branch as they eluded the racoons. They got Jake one night but Tod, the feisty little bantie, ruled all the chickens until he died of old age.

Our egg production took a decline when my young niece Asha, who lived on the property, appointed herself egg collector. She liked to slip eggs into her pockets in the hope they would hatch, or make mud cakes mixed with shaken eggs. Often I would come home from work to find notes about the eggs written in her grade one spelling. "Dear Liz the dog ‘triped’ me and I fell now all the eggs are ‘brocken’ I sorry love Asha."

Another note went like this, "Dear Liz, I just came in a few 'minets' and found two egg 'brocken' I think 'Clowy' (my cat Chloe) got into them I put her out anyway love Asha."

Asha was as passionate about the chickens as I was, and I could never tell her not to collect eggs, no matter how many got broken. She walked around with the current pet hen under her arm, crooning softly to it as she went about the property. I let the chickens roam where they wished, drawing the line only when they flapped their way onto my front deck and into the house. It has been a long time since I had chickens but I buy my farm eggs from people I know and am always ready to listen to their chicken tales. I still take great pleasure in arranging the ovoid brown and cream shapes in my old, blue pottery egg bowl.