Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 6. Source pages: 2.
I was calling around when Christine Angelloz told me that some dogs “got a number” of her “hand-reared chickens.” It was finally here: I had to stop suppressing my feelings and deal with the fact, like Kelley Pears is always showing us with exposure therapy––that our two chickens were gone, murdered by a fox. I didn’t even want the chickens at first, but then, as life has it, I grew to love them––two spectacularly interesting and funny creatures. The story of “Christmas Present from Our Backyard Chickens” was a readers’ favorite, and part of an entry that won a first place from the Press Association. I’d gladly trade the first place to have them back.
Archimedes brought home two backyard chickens and while at first highly skeptical, I’ve become a believer and fully support his comment that there are two things he’s found that are “a lot more fun and a lot less work than expected –– our grandchildren and backyard chickens.”
On the other hand, for an untreated over-functioner like myself, the power dynamics between our two chickens pose an emotional challenge.
“Red,” our unimaginatively named Rhode Island Red hen is a sweet, calm, friendly bird. Hawk, also named with the least amount of effort, is more neurotic, a little paranoid, and termed “skittish” by bird people.
But Hawk is not timid when it comes to cheating––stealing to be precise. If Red obtains a bug (a chicken’s idea of rib-eye steak) Hawk immediately zooms in, snatches the delicacy right out of Red’s beak, and dashes away.
Red (and Archimedes) appear generally unperturbed by this, while I, a rigid moralist with Irish-Catholic upbringing, find it nearly intolerable.
So, I work to help the down-trodden, and to “protect the public,” so to speak. One solution I’ve found is to feed the two together, a food source of dried mealworms. While expensive and not as good as a nearly alive bug––I’m pretty sure these worms are dead––they are too numerous and too small to motivate robbery.
However, invariably a bug enters my environment and I feel obligated to recycle. Since I’ve decided that Hawk is “unfair,” I’m now reliably intervening to level out our backyard social system.
Having discovered a very large Palmetto bug (I call it that so I don’t have to call it a roach because if it were a roach, it would be the biggest, most disgusting creature ever and I wouldn’t be able to come any where near it), I plan an intervention to deliver it to Red.
I review the terrain, knowing that Red will come closer to me. I also take a broom handle to wave at Hawk in an emergency. I toss the bug at Red, but it snags on the paper towel I have it wrapped in, and falls short. Hawk lunges. I quickly wave the broom, which has the unintended consequence of frightening both birds. To compensate, I wave my hands, which seems to keep Hawk back. Red steps forward and grasps the bug in her beak.
Seeing Red in possession of the bug apparently triggers neural pathways in Hawk and she launches a renewed attack to Red’s right side, then left, then right––Red is barely able to dodge Hawk and hold on to the bug.
I see the thing falling apart before my eyes and shout, “Hawk! Stop it!” Both birds freeze and look at me, and Red drops the bug. Hawk grabs the bug and speeds away.
Having surely co-evolved with humans, Red looks at me wide-eyed, as if to ask, “Do you have another bug for me?”
I’m subject, like most of us, to develop finer and finer interventions, some probably quite innovative, maybe some even effective, which could make life seem more fair, more perfect, more moral. I could spend time micromanaging our backyard chickens.
Or, for this Christmas and New Year, I could just let things be.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.