A Story For A Friend

 This is written for a friend who apparently really enjoys chickens, so. Fair warning that you are going to read about my family and chickens.

To begin, I should start with my mother the Undercover Hippie. I spent a good portion of my childhood thinking my mother was normal because she didn't dress in tie-dye, but as an adult I've realised there are several things that marked my mother as one of those Boulder Hippies. Notable occasions on this list are the time that she filled the brownies with wheat germ and made them crunchy, and the chickens.

Chickens, in and of themselves, are reasonable things to own. Usually. However, my mother wanted them for eggs, and began by taking the childhood fort (which most of us had grown out of) and turning it into a chicken coop. By chicken coop, I mean she stuck some boxes in it and put a fence around it, and patched up the hole in the side from A's Enthusiastic Ninja Punch, and the hole in the other side from C's Peephole Experiment, and both windows, and then got chickens.

My mother is the sort of learner who just starts a project and then learns as she goes. While she knew they needed food and basic heating, she was otherwise a bit naiive. 

For example, it turns out L, my sister, is terrified of chickens. My mother apparently didn't know this (Mom, I don't like the idea of chickens) until the chickens (Mom, really, do you think we have to have chickens, because they have beaks, and I got pecked once) actually got to the house (OH MY GOD GET IT AWAY. GET. IT. AWAY. GET IT AWAY GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!!!!). 

Additionally, Mom forgot that chickens can fly, and thus made the interesting mistake of not wiring off the top areas of the roof, and on day one had to knock on the neighbour's door and ask if she could retrieve her chickens from their yard. 

Eventually, after many phone calls, Mom got a handle on chicken care - by which I mean she passed the project onto my chicken-enthusiastic younger brother, who adored them. Not only did Mom have chickens, she had Happy Chickens who were more than pleased to make Many Eggs, and the family chowed down happily.

W, my chicken-enthusiastic younger brother, explained chickens to me this way:

Chickens have a hierarchy, so you have to have a rooster. They'll start pecking each other and it's a mess, but roosters kinda keep them calm, though roosters can get aggressive if the hierarchy gets disturbed, so you have to keep the roosters calm. This isn't really hard, except that if you have to have a rooster, you've got a chance of eggs getting fertilised, and we want to eat them, so you have to go out and get the eggs every day, unless you want chickens, and there's a limit of how many chickens you can have inside city limits.

All of which seems perfectly reasonable, and was perfectly reasonable, until Mom decided to go on a fortnight's holiday with my younger brothers, including W. 

This left L in charge of the chickens.

Now, my mother is not a reasonable person, so if you're just now wondering why Mom left the chicken-terrified child in front of the chickens, it's because mom is either an idiot or an arse, and I've still not decided to this day which one she is, so we'll leave it that. But regardless of Mom's motivations, my younger sister is now in charge of the chickens, and she can't get within a few yards before wanting to burst into tears, but also has a Big Heart and doesn't want the chickens to die. 

The chickens need fed and watered.

According to W, several things had happened when he got home and took charge of 'his' chickens again. 

1. On day one, L had attempted to feed the chickens, and upon entering the coop had been met by the Rooster, who, not recognising her, had immediately gone into Protective Mode, and L had fled the coop, dropping the food but leaving the door open. This led to L calling the neighbours in a panic asking for a Group Hunt for the Chickens, because she was too terrified to round them up out of the yard. A friendly neighbour put the hose into the water trough so L could just turn it on instead of going in. 
2. L had fed the chickens every day by taking a bucket about the right size full of feed, and tossing it into the coop. Not just the feed - the whole bucket. W had to pick up 12 different containers, because after L ran out of buckets she just started using old yogurt containers and what have you. The chickens apparently didn't mind being bombed with buckets full of food, just ran out of the way and then attacked the containers until they got their due. 
3. L didn't fetch the eggs, not even once, which meant that now W was a full eight chicks over the city limit, and had to give six to some friends in the foothills who weren't in city limits and could have as many chicks as they wanted. He ended up keeping the eight chicks and bargaining with the neighbours that they could have free eggs, provided that if the city Chicken Inspectors came by, the neighbors would tell the Chicken Inspectors that W was just caring for their chickens while they built a new coop or something. 

By the time W, L, A, and my mother left to live in Swaziland (another story altogether), my brother had ten chickens over the limit, all extremely pleased and contented with life, until L went Anywhere Near The Coop, at which point they would all start shrieking like the dickens and running out of the way of any impending Food Bombs, except for the Rooster, who would puff up and start attacking the fence in preparation.

Anyway, the point of this story is Don't Leave L In Charge Of The Chickens, with side morals of Don't Buy Pets You're Not Prepared For and Don't Fuck With Roosters, and also I hope you feel better.