Tastes like chicken

     It's hard to love a chicken.

Terrible things happen to chickens.

     Generally when I check on the hens in the morning and there are this many feathers grouped in an area I start looking for a carcass.  Just this summer I had my 9 year old stepson in tow when I spotted a pile of feathers on the ground inside the hen house.

     "Zach!  Run back inside and grab my coffee for me."

     "But..."

     "I need coffee NOW!"

     The 5 minutes it took him to retrieve my cup were all I needed to find poor old Frannie's body.  She was on her last legs, having lived a good life in my back yard, and some critter took advantage of her frailty to finish her off in the night.

     This morning's dusting of feathers, however, were not an indication of a tragedy.  I counted beaks 3x and everyone is present.

     

     Yes, Peregrine, stand tall and proud, even though you have crap smeared all over your beak.  

  Chickens are gross but I have a big yard and they aren't any grosser than my dogs.  At least the chickens don't try to lick my face after they've been gnawing on a dead, rotted lizard.

     It's hard to admit but I have yet to successfully raise an egg laying hen from a chick. The dangers are endless and come from directions I can't even imagine until it's too late.  One of the worst dangers being my gentle dachshund, Lilly.  She's terrified of the grown hens but show her a baby and Pavlovian drool starts flowing.  

     The next generation of layers is flexing its wings in a secure pen in my yard but it's too soon for names and attachments.  The last time I grew overly fond of a chick she was snatched out of the henhouse in the night by a raccoon that found a tiny opening in the chicken wire I had missed.  

     There is also the matter of not knowing for certain if all my chicks will be hens.  I am a creature of habit and always buy my chickens from the same place.  If I buy the hens as adults, there are no surprises but they will never be very tame.  The younger I get a chicken, the more tame and consequently, entertaining, it will be but the variables are greater.

     My worst nightmare after the fear of sudden chick death at the paws of animals, is that one of my "girls" wakes me up at 4am crowing at the top of her lungs.  I have my doubts about the one pictured above.  I've been told by the experts not to make any sudden decisions as adolescent chickens, much like all adolescents, will experiment with some behaviours before settling into adulthood.

      My neighbor from Trinidad is eyeing this one.  She wants to cook him up.  When I protested that he would be too small and tough, she replied, in that great Trinidad accent, "Oh, we like them like that.  We just use a pressure cooker."  

     Before I resort to that, I will ask around for a farm with room to let a beautiful, hand-raised, little rooster roam freely.