The word is out, stamped, across my forehead in bold
letters,
”
Bring me your hen-pecked hens and feather plucked roosters.
Bring on the chickens!
”
The word is out, stamped, across my forehead in bold letters, “Bring me your hen-pecked hens and feather plucked roosters. Bring on the chickens!”
It all started last September when a neighbor stopped by to ask if we wanted a couple of young roosters. If not, that was OK too, because they would make a great chicken stew.
A year ago, I knew exactly how many chickens we had – zero. Now I have lost count.
The word is any chicken doomed for the stew pot or a life of misery gets one last lucky break at Linda’s Last Chance Ranch.
My oldest son, Michael, and his fiancee brought us eight very mature hens doomed to the guillotine. It was then the campaign to Save the San Juan Bautista Chickens From Extinction was underway. Complete strangers were pulling up in my driveway with the catch of the day.
“Hey lady, are you the one who saves chickens?”
Almost a dozen people this year alone have showed up at our doorstep expressing chicken tales of woe and condemning circumstances. Meanwhile, the poultry population is growing.
Among these chicken liberators was Kathy Sheridan. Her hen’s dilemma started after the Fourth of July fireworks. The other hens were content to peck and pluck the feathers right out of Debbie’s head. Yes, chickens do have names.
After two years having lived in harmony, Debbie was now at the bottom of the pecking order. Life was simple and predictable in a chicken coop. In Debbie’s own little chicken coop world, she had a never-ending supply of food and water. Debbie lived like a civilized chicken. There was no need to hunt and no competitive eating.
Like city people moving into the country, chickens cooped up too long soon forget the rules of nature. Debbie arrived with clipped wings, clean toenails, a beak too long for forging and does not know what to expect or how to act in the country. Watching her is similar to the characters in the movie, “City Slickers.”
To top it off, the hen-pecking experience traumatized Debbie. She is now terrified of her own kind. Our goal is to convince Debbie she is not one of us.
However, outside my home office window, sitting on a rain barrel is my feathered friend peering in at me, pleading, “I’m not one of them! Please let me in!”
Living with a bunch of hens all her life, Debbie didn’t understand the nature of things. She never even saw a rooster before.
The younger roosters crowed and did the “walk” for Debbie.
“Hey, chickadee! Get a load of these tail feathers.”
While the young roosters fought over the new chick, Frick, the head cock, did his ritual foot and wing dance and sang out a love crow from the cockles of his heart.
“She’s mine.”
Frick ain’t no Berry White, but he sure won points over the inexperienced roosters who didn’t understand “fowl play.”
Most of the chickens arrived with a chicken buddy or a brood, except for Debbie and Uncle Louie, the old man of the group. They arrived alone, which is probably why they bonded.
Uncle Louie is, well, Uncle Louie. The mutt of all chickens. Severely rejected by the San Juan Chickens, Uncle Louie arrived in the same condition as Debbie, pecked and plucked near bald. Uncle Louie caught eye of Debbie’s plucked plumage and fell instantly in chicken love.
“Birds of a feather,” he crowed.
Debbie learned a lot from her country cousins – how to trim her own beak, keep her toenails sharp and how to fertilize her eggs. As I said, the poultry population is growing.
The latest word is chickens all over San Benito County are planning to make another chicken run.
Suddenly it occurs to me I know more about chickens than I ever intended. As the song says, “I’ve got too much time on my hands.”
Ah, the word maybe out. A chicken’s only hope may very well be at Linda’s
Last Chance Ranch, but it still sounds like “fowl play.” Bring it on.
Linda Lee King is a Free Lance correspondent. Her column appears every Wednesday.
