Welcome to ChickenHero.Org, a collection of all sorts of chicken stuff. Thanks to Peggy for being the first contributing author. Peggy is the proud caretaker of 128 pet hens and roosters at last count. I hope you enjoy her stories as much as I have. Chicken fans, C'mon and send in your stories, photos, jokes or whatever... CHICKENS,
DUCKS, AND OTHER FEATHERED FRIENDS
It sometimes happens that when a mother hen or duck is
setting on her eggs, other females will sneak onto the
nest in the early stages of the incubation period, when
the mother still leaves the nest briefly for food or
water, and lay their own eggs. This is fine when
the eggs are all of one kind, but creates problems when
they are mixed, because of the different gestation
periods.
One spring, Dirty Duck, one of our Khaki Campbell ducks,
the lifetime spouse of Daddy Duck, began setting on a
clutch of eggs, which take 28 days to incubate. I
was unaware that a chicken had snuck onto Dirty's nest
until one day, 21 days after she started setting, I heard
loud, agitated angry quacking issuing forth from the
chicken coop. I rushed out to discover Dirty Duck
off her nest, pointing indignantly with one wing at a
tiny yellow chick sitting forlornly in the center of a
clutch of still unhatched duck eggs. Dirty Duck was
telling me in no uncertain terms that this baby was not
hers, that she would not tolerate it in her nest,
and that I should remove it at once. There was
clearly no hope that she would adopt it as her own as
they sometimes do. As soon as I picked up the
offending chick, Dirty promptly returned to the nest,
fluffed up her feathers and went on with the business of
incubating her ducklings, giving me a withering glance
that meant, "Don't even think of putting that
ugly thing back in here."
We made the chick comfortable in a box in my bathroom
with an incubator light. He turned out to be a fine
yellow rooster, very friendly and personable despite his
early experience of rejection. He grew rapidly and
was given the name "Kong" by my son Evan.
After raising him inside for over a month, I thought I
might try again to introduce him to the chicken coop,
where Dirty Duck and her seven three-week old ducklings
were thriving. When I put him in the coop, Dirty
did not seem to object to him, and the ducklings accepted
him as a sibling. Though there were many chickens
in the coop, the baby rooster never took up with his own
kind, but stuck strictly with the ducks and, in fact,
never seemed to realize he was a chicken and not a duck.
He followed the ducklings around, all marching single
file together as ducks do, Kong happily bringing up
the rear. When it rained, my chickens immediately
went into the coop to stay dry, but the ducks waddled
around delightedly, getting drenched, the rooster
strutting around with them. When the chickens flew
up to the rafters to roost at night, Kong snuggled down
on the ground with the ducks. And, when the ducks
bathed in their pond, Kong lay right on the edge of the
pond and threw water over himself with his wings, though
he didn't attempt to swim.
Kong grew to epic proportions and became quite a pet.
Next to being with the ducks, there was nothing Kong
liked more than to be packed around by Evan. He
was very nearly the size of Evan at that point, and it
was quite a sight to see Evan staggering around with this
enormous rooster in his arms.
At that time I kept all the chicken feed stored in a pump
house next to my well. In anticipation of my coming
out to the pump house to scatter grain, the chickens
would wait there in the morning, perched around the
edge of the well cover. One day I had water and
pump problems and called a service man for help. After
talking to me he decided the problem might be down in the
well, and strode purposefully out there to take a look.
There were 12 chickens roosting around the perimeter of
the well cover. Without first shooing them away,
the repairman gave the heavy cover a quick hard shove
with his boot, and as it went flying off the well, all 12
chickens went 20 feet straight down to the bottom.
It reminded me of the trick the magician does in which he
whisks the table cloth off the table while all the
dinnerware comes down precisely in place, except these
were chickens, not dishes.
I was instantly hysterical, seeing so many of my birds
floundering helplessly in several feet of water at the
bottom of the well. When I realized Kong was among
them I became really distraught. We tried
everything we could think of to reach the chickens.
There was no way for either of us to climb down into or
be lowered into the well. We finally lashed
together a pole pruner, a rake, and a bucket and by
repeatedly lowering this contraption and dragging it up,
we brought up one chicken at a time, all dead, drowned
almost immediately by the weight of their sodden
feathers. I noticed throughout this ordeal that
Kong stayed reasonably calm, did not thrash about in the
water, did not exhibit the terror of the water
which the others did, kept climbing up on the carcasses
of the other chickens, and was the last to go under.
However, when we finally hauled him up he, too, was dead,
although he had been alive right to the end.
Now, two things went through my mind at this point.
One was that Evan was due home from kindergarten any
minute, and I could not face the prospect of telling him
Kong had died. The other was that I had just
finished a course in CPR in which I had the
opportunity to practice on a Resuscibaby. I
looked at Kong and realized he was about the same size as
a human infant. Without further thought, I put Kong
on his back, spread out his wings, and began
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In a very short time,
he began to breathe, and when he was finally breathing
normally I rushed him inside, dried him off in a big
towel, wrapped him in a blanket and put him in front of
the heater.
To say that the man who had come to work on the water
system was incredulous would be the understatement of the
century. His mouth dropped open and he stared at me
speechless while I labored on Kong. I live in
a very small town and it doesn't take much to generate
excitement, and this man could not wait to get into town
and hit every bar with the news that he had just watched
a woman give mouth-to-beak resuscitation to a chicken.
For at least two years after that I had to endure guffaws
and chicken-clucking sounds whenever I walked past the
local rednecks.
Did Evan and Kong and I care about this ridicule? Not
a bit! Kong lived many long, healthy years after
that, although as a result of his accident he was mildly
retarded. * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
My hens were always good brooders, with the result that I
often had new baby chicks, and, of course, many of them
turned out to be roosters. Because I was raising
the chickens for eggs, there was not much use for the
roosters, but I couldn't bear the thought of
"culling" the extra ones. At one point I
had nine or ten of them, all strutting around, all
crowing loudly in the morning. My first
post-divorce boyfriend (also conveniently named
‘Gary’) took exception to this and continually
badgered me to get rid of some of them. I was able
to give a couple away, but still it was not enough.
One day Gary and I were out on my deck, and he was again
complaining about the roosters, several of which were in
the yard. He particularly objected to one he felt
was noisier than the rest, and, before I could stop him,
he suddenly ran off the deck, grabbed this rooster,
swung it around in complete circles several times by the
neck, then walked to the edge of the yard and flung
the body into the woods. (This boyfriend did not
last much beyond this incident.)
The next morning, all the chickens came running as usual
for their grain, among them the young rooster who had
been "killed" the day before. He now had
a right-angle turn in his neck, but otherwise was none
the worse for wear. He, too, lived several more
years, though he was chronically scrawny due to eye-beak
coordination problems. * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One day I went out to feed the chickens and discovered
that my youngest rooster was huddled up behind the door
of the coop. Normally a handsome and lively fellow,
he was sitting in a dejected heap, trying not to attract
the attention of the other chickens. His tail
feathers had lost their vivid colors and his comb and
wattle were a pale pink instead of their usual bright
red. It occurred to me that he might have been sick
for several days before I was aware of it.
Chickens will pick on other chickens that are sick or
injured, and this young rooster was low man in the
pecking order in any event. I immediately removed
him to convalesce in the safety and privacy of my
gardening shed.
He perked up and began walking around within a day or
two, and then I discovered that he was blind. His
eyes did not appear to be pecked at, nor were they cloudy
or runny from disease. They were clear and bright,
but he was, nonetheless, completely blind.
What do you do with a blind rooster? He was such a
sweet, charming young fellow, I hated to have him killed,
though that was the recommendation of my friends. They
all advised me that it was, in fact, cruel to keep a
blind rooster in solitary confinement in a shed. I
was urged to put him out of his misery, the sooner the
better.
I had another idea. What about giving him his very
own hen? I went out to the chicken coop and looked
at my selection of hens. When chickens mate, the
rooster mounts the hen and pulls great tufts of her neck
and back feathers out with his beak while engaged in his
passionate lovemaking. I noticed there was one hen
who did not have the feathers missing from her neck and
back, a sure indication that she was not considered
desirable by the males. She was black and white,
tall, gawky, and gangly, with roosterish legs and a long
neck. I could tell after only a few minutes of
observation that she was quite the wallflower. I
scooped her up and took her out to the gardening shed to
meet her new mate.
The instant I put her into the shed, the rooster was
transformed. He was electrified by her presence,
spread his tail feathers in a fan and did a sideways
dance for her (he thought he was in front of her but
actually he was off to one side). Within two days,
his coloring had all returned, his comb and wattle were
back to bright red, his tail feathers shone with
brilliant hues, and he had begun crowing again, a great,
lusty, cocky good morning. And his hen was content,
too, and immediately began producing one or two large
eggs a day.
They are a happy couple. I have never had the heart
to tell the rooster how ugly his wife is. ********************
I take my dogs walking in the woods whenever possible,
following logging roads and deer paths. These are
real woods, out in the middle of nowhere, with no houses
nearby. On my walks I have encountered an
astonishing number of lost, abandoned, or stray cats,
dogs, puppies, kittens, and chickens--even a horse!.
Some of these animals I kept, some I found homes
for, and some I turned over to the Humane Society. I
have often speculated about this situation: if there are that
many stray animals in the infinitesimally small,
sparsely populated corner of the earth which I inhabit,
how many must there be world-wide? It is not a
happy thought.
One day I was walking the dogs when they suddenly charged
into the bushes after something. Immediately the
loud, terrified squawking of a chicken being mauled by
dogs issued forth. I rushed into the bushes, where
my dog Britta had caught a little yellow hen and was
killing it. At my command, she dropped it and
backed off. The hen was barely alive. The dog had
bitten it badly and blood was pumping from several holes.
It had lost most of its feathers, yanked out in clumps by
my dog. I swaddled her against my sweatshirt and
carried her home. In a separate room in the chicken
coop I made a bed of straw and gently laid the
blood-soaked hen on it. She was scarcely breathing,
and lay on her side, eyes glazed. She made no
attempt to move, lift up her head, or open her eyes.
In the morning I went out to the coop to remove her body,
only to discover that she was still alive. She took
a little water I offered her, but did not move. It
was nearly a week before she stood, and many more days
before she walked. She was quite crippled from an
injury to her legs that I hadn't noticed at first.
About a month later, friends of mine who live three miles
away and on the other side of the woods from me came to
visit. They also have a small farm and a multitude
of animals and, as farmers do, we began talking about our
livestock.
"I had to kill off all but one of my roosters,"
Larry told me. "Neighbors were complaining
about their crowin'. I had to shoot them all.
Had to pile all the dead ones in my pick-up and dump 'em
out in the woods. Bet that made a nice treat for
some critter!"
"You didn't just kill the roosters," his wife
said reproachfully. "If you remember, you also
shot a little yellow hen of mine that was standing next
to a rooster. Shot her and killed her. Some
aim you have!"
A bright flash of intuition went off in my brain. "What
did you do with the dead hen?" I asked Larry.
"Dumped her with the roosters," Larry replied.
"Out in the woods near where you walk your
dogs."
I asked them to come out to the chicken coop with me and
look at my little lame hen. Sure enough, it was the
same one Larry accidentally shot.
I couldn't help thinking that this pretty little
four-month old hen, in its short life, had been: shot,
tossed into a pick-up truck, thrown out on a refuse pile
in the woods with other dead animals, and attacked and
torn apart by dogs. It would be enough to
discourage any creature from wanting to go on living, and
at the very least could be expected to produce a negative
outlook. Nonetheless, she was a happy little thing,
so much so that I named her 'Sunny' for her disposition.
She lived for years, becoming one of the finest brood
hens I ever had and nurturing a long line of handsome and
productive chickens. * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One story about a childhood pet fits in here so perfectly
that I have to tell it. One Easter my little sister
Molly received a day-old duckling as a present. This
duckling grew into a handsome white drake much beloved by
our family. His name was Jad (for "Just A
Duck"), and he had the run of our large fenced
backyard in suburban Southern California. For the
first two years, Jad was happy to waddle through the
sprinklers or be sprayed by the garden hose. Then
my mother decided he couldn't possibly be happy without a
duck pond, and went about making one for him. She
bought a large, heavy-duty styrene child's wading pool
and recessed this in the ground in the backyard. Jad
loved his private pool, but my mother became concerned
that someone would fall into it, as it was not very
visible. Her solution to this was to buy an
inflatable white plastic swan, and set it floating in
Jad's pond, an obvious indicator of the presence of
water.
It was love at first sight for Jad. The minute he
laid eyes on that swan he was mad with passion for her.
After her arrival, he rarely got out of the water, but
swam and bobbed and billed and cooed with his amour.
This went on for many weeks, until he decided to
introduce her into the wider world. He began
dragging the swan all around the yard with him. Wherever
he went, the swan went, too. If Jad went into the
ivy hunting for snails, she came along. If he went
behind the garage for a nap, she accompanied him. Initially,
he dragged her around by her slim neck; then, most
unfortunately, he began to carry her around by her air
valve. We waited for the inevitable. At last,
it happened, and he accidentally deflated her. With
one large hiss and whoosh of air she was disembodied,
nothing left of her but her plastic hide. Jad was
traumatized and demoralized by this beyond description
(try to imagine this happening to you with someone you
love). Reinflating the swan lady did not set things
right. He never trusted her again.
As a result of this severe shock, Jad became somewhat
psychotic and developed emotional problems. He took
a dislike to women, apparently on the unfair assumption
that betrayal by one meant they were all up to no good.
He became mean and aggressive around women other than my
mother, my sister, and me. He attacked their feet.
My mother got a call at work one day from the police
department. "Mrs. Halstad," the policeman
told her, "we have an assault and battery situation
involving a member of your family and we need you to
return home immediately." My mother rushed
home. As she turned onto our street, she could see
the police cars and a little knot of bystanders. She
also noticed our neighbors Mrs. Kemp and Mrs.
Roberts huddled fearfully on the roof of a parked car.
Jad apparently had spotted the two matrons when they were
out for a stroll through the neighborhood. So
incensed was he by this sight that he had flown over the
backyard gate and gone straight for them, chasing them
down the street, quacking loudly, beating his wings
furiously and biting at their feet until they took refuge
atop the car. He continued to circle the car
menacingly while the women screamed. Finally the
police were summoned.
My mother called off her duck. He calmed down
immediately, and seemed contrite. The ladies agreed
not to press charges. But my father feared a
lawsuit, and the next weekend Jad was taken to the Cal
Poly Duck Pond, where we hoped he would find true romance
with someone more real and less plastic than his first
love.
* * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We have only one phone in our house, located on the
kitchen wall. My bedroom is the one in closest
proximity to it. Last year, I began having the
disconcerting experience of hearing the phone ring, only
to rush from my bedroom to discover it was not ringing at
all. This went on for some weeks and I started to
question my sanity. Surely "hearing
things" was the first symptom of a major psychotic
interlude.
I had the line tested by the phone company and they
determined that all was in order. On the chance
that the phantom ringing was a malfunction of the phone
itself, I bought a new one. It had a distinctly
different sound from the previous one, a much shriller,
sharper ring.
Imagine my consternation several days later when, as I
lay in bed reading, I again heard the sound of a
telephone ringing--only it was the sound of the old
one! This happened a few more times, although the
new phone began producing phantom rings as well.
Just before I called the men in white coats to come and
take me away, I finally discovered the source of the
ringing: my parakeets Frosty and Snowy, whose cage hung
near the phone, had learned to mimic the sound perfectly! ********************
When my son Travis was nine years old, he was given
a parakeet he named 'Quatro.' Travis is by far the
most patient and determined of my three sons, and he
decided to teach Quatro to talk, no matter what it took.
Although you can buy recordings to train birds to talk,
Travis had his own plan. The boys still had an old
Woody Woodpecker stuffed animal with a voice box. When
you pulled Woody's string, he said, "You're really a
nice kid!" Unfortunately the speed was a
little off on this toy and the phrase was perhaps not as
clear as it should have been, particularly after repeated
use.
Over and over and over Travis pulled Woody's string for
Quatro. Over and over and over Quatro listened to
Woody repeat the same sentence. At last, Quatro
spoke.
"You're really an ice cube," he said. |