Contributed by Marilyn Bennett
Sometimes it helps to get away from the everyday bad, sad, irritating or obnoxious news and just have an old-fashioned talk about chickens.
On visiting my daughter and her husband in Valdez, I have been amazed at how they had turned their city lot into a small chicken farm. Yes, they fell prey to the craze that has been sweeping the country for the past 15 years of “Yuppy City Chicken People”. You might wonder how chickens can survive in Valdez under 10 feet of snow. Well, my son-in-law has built a chicken coop that is a marvel of covered patios, sheds and an overhead walkway leading the chickens into the greenhouse in the winter, thereby providing fertilizer for the summer vegetables.
All seemed to go well with their chicken yard until this year when they decided to add several more chickens as the old hens were not laying eggs anymore. This time, they decided to order eggs so their three daughters could enjoy watching them hatch. The family enjoyed the new chickens until they realized that they now had four roosters. They tried to find good homes for the roosters, but were having poor luck as adult roosters are not a popular pet.
Having no other options, they decided to kill Blackie as he was a very loud and nasty character. To accomplish this, (being city folk), they purchased a chicken killing cone. The instructions on the cone were: “Simply place the chicken in the cone upside down and pull their head gently through the bottom opening so their beak is facing you, the chicken should pass out. Then cut the carotid artery on the side of the chicken’s neck.”
Well, the rooster refused to pass out and was not quiet about it's situation, which upset their seven-year-old, daughter who started begging and crying, “Mom, Dad, please. Can't we let Blackie live just one more day?" Of course, that was the end of further thoughts about killing any of the roosters.
Upon being told this silly story of the non-killing of Blackie it reminded my older daughter of a chicken story from her childhood in southern Arkansas. We had a campground on a lake and had chickens, ducks, geese, guinea hens and what-have-you. She remembered a time when her and I were down next to the lake to kill a chicken to keep the blood away from the house. I chopped off the head, but accidentally let go of her and she took off flying across the lake and we were left with just the head and never did recover the rest of the chicken. From then on, I cut off their heads where they would have lots of room to run if I was foolish enough to lose my hold on the chicken. My biggest disappointment with my chickens was that since they were free-range, they were slim and trim instead of fat and juicy, which didn't make for as tasty a meal as the chickens from the grocery store.
That story then reminded Doug of a rooster they had when he had a farm in upstate New York. Their chickens were free-range and one day, a very nasty rooster attacked his five-year-old daughter. Luckily, her older brother decided to defend his sister and threw a big rock at the rooster, which hit him in the head and killed him instantly. Roosters can be pretty dangerous because of their sharp spurs, if not trimmed back when they were young.
So many chicken stories. My granddaughters main interest in the chickens seems to be painting their toenails bright colors and giving them names. My daughter has even gone the extra mile of training the dog not to chase the chickens. I have a hard time getting my head around having chickens in the city, but each to his own. Then recently, I saw a video of a rooster chasing a dog around a pile of wood. Guess the rooster has gone from just being a meal to a source of amusement.
Regarding Blackie and the other three roosters, my daughter put a free ad in Facebook and they were all adopted and so got to live for at least another day.
If you have a chicken story you would like to share, it would be a good thing to do as then we can all relax, listening to chicken stories while helping ourselves to a nice hot bowl of chicken soup.