Heart to Heart, Hand in Paw

Chapter 3: Three Little Gray Chickens

Luanne walked along the side of the road, a plastic bucket slapping against her knee. There was a well on their property, but it mostly was dry. Anyway, the nearby spring provided crystal clear, mountain-fed water. Corky pranced a bit ahead, disappearing at times to explore in the gulley, but always checking back to make sure Luanne was right behind. She could see his curly fur dotted with prickly burdocks she’d need to pick off later. A car approached and she stepped to the side of the road, the bucket jostling, dripping cool water down her leg. It was Henry. He stopped so that she and Corky could climb in, his face flushed with guilt.
“What’d you do?” Luanne took one look at him and sighed.
He was supposed to have gone to town for a dozen eggs. What he got instead was a six pack of beer, eight White Leghorn chickens and eight Rhode Island Reds. They clucked angrily from crates in the back.
“We’ll never have to buy eggs again!” he beamed.
That afternoon Henry hammered together a lopsided coop from leftover scraps of wood. The chickens squawked in their boxes, unhappy at being pent up, waiting. Most people would have built the coop first, and then bought the chickens. And, with so much work to still be done on the house, Luanne knew was angry at first. But chickens! She reached through the slats of the wooden crates to stroke the soft feathers. Their very own chickens!
By dusk Henry had gone through a box of nails, three bandages, and the entire six pack, and produced a serviceable henhouse.
“Don’t we need a pen too?”
“Free range,” Henry responded. He opened the crates and chickens scattered everywhere, clucking and causing a horrible racket. They fluttered their wings, ran on their scrawny feet, and pecked at the ground. Corky’s ineffective herding only caused them to spread out farther. As it grew dark, instinctively the chickens headed for the coop and huddled on the roosts. Henry closed the door to keep them safe for the night.
Luanne loved having the chickens pecking away underfoot as she did her chores. They paraded around with cheerful, busy clucks and bobbing heads. When she tried to pick them up, most scurried away, except Penny. Penny was the smallest chicken, with stubby white feathers and short little legs. After Luanne scattered the corn, Penny always scuttled up and pecked Luanne’s ankle. Luanne concluded that was a chicken’s thank you. She bent down and stroked Penny’s back, and sometimes lifted her and crossed her arms over the warm feathery body. Most chickens didn’t like to be held but then again, if you had enough chickens, you’d find one who was different.
Luanne discovered something else about chickens. One night just as it grew dark, she started to close up the henhouse and did a double-take. There, the eight white chickens lined up on the roost on one side of the coop. The eight red chickens roosted on the other side. Not one color mixed with chickens of another color.
“Why do they do that?” she asked Henry.
“Danged if I know.”
“How do they know what color they are?”
Every night the chickens segregated themselves in the henhouse. Luanne assumed, as she did about dogs and other animals, that chickens were color blind. But some instinct must have told them which birds belonged together. Something deeply ingrained that warned them it was not okay to intermingle.
Later than usual one night, Luanne rushed to close up the henhouse. She peered into the dark coop and counted the chickens to make sure they were all there. Eight red ones on one side. Eight white ones on the other. And three gray ones in the middle.
Startled, she stepped back. Of course, they didn’t have any gray chickens. She squinted and looked again. There on the wire sat three baby raccoons, hanging on for dear life. Their wide eyes shone in the dark. Caught in the act!
Gasping, she scanned the roosts again to make sure all the chickens were accounted for. The raccoons scooted down from their perch and skedaddled out of the henhouse.
She laughed at the raccoons, more frightened than the chickens, and latched the henhouse door. An angry chattering rose from back in the woods. The babies had returned to their parents. She could only imagine they were being scolded. “We told you not to wander off so far. Why didn’t you let us know where you were going?” she imagined their mama saying. “And you didn’t even get a chicken dinner.”
Keeping the chickens safe from predators was half the responsibility, and the other half was keeping them happy and producing eggs. And at some point, if you keep chickens, you might start to think, “Wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a rooster?” Just as that thought crossed Luanne’s mind, neighbors up the road decided that they no longer wanted their rooster, and asked if she could take it off their hands.
Why someone would want to get rid of a rooster soon became clear.
Fred was a handsome fellow and he knew it. The minute he was dropped off and let out of his box, he pulled himself up so that his legs looked remarkably long, and he high-stepped around the yard. He must have thought he was in heaven upon spying the yard full of attractive females. He puffed his pretty speckled chest, and stuck his tiny pointy beak in the air. His body shone in rich brown and black as if polished, but most of all he loved his impressive tail feathers. So dark they were almost blue, with a speck of white, they curled gracefully and cascaded down behind. He puffed and strutted some more. The hens eyed him curiously, but when they approached he dashed after them with a gleam in his eye, and frightened them away.
This perplexed Fred. Every day the same thing. The more he pursued the ladies, the more they ran off. Luanne felt sorry for him, even though he crowed too early in the morning and tried to dash after her, too, when she approached with food.
“How am I going to teach Fred some manners?” she asked, scattering the seed.
“He might make a nice stew,” suggested Henry.
Luanne tried to catch Fred so that she could hold him and introduce him to Penny. But Fred would have none of it. He was the boss around there, and he’d decide who and when he wanted to visit.
“He’s not for you, Penny,” Luanne sighed. “There will be other roosters in the barnyard.” Actually, after Fred’s example she hoped not, but Luanne didn’t want her beautiful white feathered friend to feel bad about Fred’s poor manners. Penny ran off and joined the others in the henhouse.
Luanne needn’t have worried, however, because barnyard karma prevailed. The hens knew they had Fred outnumbered. Every time Fred started to pursue one of the lovely ladies, the other chickens raced over from near and far, squawking and clucking, surrounded the rooster and began pecking. He’d pounce on a red chicken by the wood pile, and soon be set upon by her angry friends. He’d trail a couple white hens around the side yard, and find himself amid a horde of heated hens.
One afternoon Luanne and Henry heard a huge commotion of crowing and clucking, and ran out by the coop. The girls were angry and feathers were flying. Luanne caught a glimpse of Fred, bobbing and weaving, the hens blocking his escape. He looked so defeated, her heart ached for him. It wasn’t always the little ones who got picked on. He might have been the big bully at first, but now he was being assaulted. They’d nearly pecked him bald-headed. His once-beautiful tail was now just a few tattered, dirty feathers. She couldn’t bear to watch. She grabbed a broom to intervene.
“Mean or not, he doesn’t deserve this.”
Henry held her back. “He’ll be alright,” he said. “That is, if he shapes up.”
“There won’t be anything left of him to shape up.”