The Farmer has been away on a business trip this week so I’m
in charge of the chickens. I don’t like chickens. You reach down into their
fluffy puddle of bodies to extract the feeding trough that they are standing
in, and they peck your hands. They scream excitedly when I step into the pen
and rush over to peck at my ankles. I forgot socks and couldn’t pull rubber
boots on over my bare feet so I just had my rubber sandals on. Ankles were
exposed and they got sufficiently pecked.
No, it doesn’t hurt when they peck me. It’s just rather
uncomfortable. The Farmer thinks I’m a wimp but really. Standing in a
chicken-poop dampened pile of hay, getting swarmed by mosquitoes and pecked by
tiny yellow birds is not my idea of fun. Not to mention what it does to my
hair. I give up trying to smooth out my frizzy hair. I will spend the rest of
the summer with an unholy halo of fuzz for a hairstyle.
Now the turkeys, on the other hand, are so docile and polite
it’s actually quite pleasant to tend to them. I swear one of them cooed a thank
you when I spread fresh straw over their soggy pen floor. Before I could even
get the straw off the end of my pitchfork they were on it, settling in and preening
their feathers. They need the dry straw to keep their downy feathers nice and
dry. Otherwise they look like they have been dumped in a water bucket and hung
upside down to dry.
I watched as they fussed and claimed nests in the new pile
of straw. “Oh, this is nice. Come feel this, Clara. Don’t shove. This is my
spot. Oh it feels nice. Just wiggle on down into that straw and see how good it
feels on your feathers. There. Isn’t this lovely?” They cooed and softly
chuckled to each other in a little feathery chorus.
I like to do nice things for the turkeys. They’re so
appreciative. Even when I’m filling their feeders, they just come and stand
beside me and make soft, polite comments. Croo. Brrrrr. Gobble.
The chickens are equally thrilled when they get new bedding
but until they get a bit bigger and their heat lamps are removed I have to be
really careful about that. Don’t want to hit the heat lamp with a piece of
straw or it’ll be a hot time in the old barn tonight.
I can say one nice thing about the chickens, though. I
suspect they might be slightly more intelligent than the turkeys. When the
automatic water troughs failed last year one chicken, either self-appointed or
elected we don’t know, went out as a sentry into the dark night. From the back
porch where we were socializing and digesting our Sunday dinner, we could hear
one clear, frantic chirp-song louder than the others. Amanda happened to be out
in the barnyard investigating, and followed the sound to the chicken, who then
led her to the dry water troughs.
I have been spending a bit of time watching How to Hypnotize
your Chicken on YouTube. The problem is I don’t think it works with meat birds,
who tend to be more aggressive than laying hens or show birds. Maybe I will try
it on my turkeys when they are a bit bigger. They are, after all, the more
trusting and gullible of the birds.
I can see it now. Market Day arrives, the Farmer goes to the
barn to wrestle all the flapping, kicking and thrashing 30-lb turkeys into cages
and finds them neatly lined up on the straw, sound asleep. The gentle way to
go. Maybe I will start a trend. Like freezing your fresh lobsters before you
boil them. Hypnotize your poultry before they go to the processing plant. Happy
animals are delicious animals. I usually tell them they are going on vacation,
in soothing, comforting tones, and pet their feathers through the cages until
they calm down. Hypnosis might be even better. Not sure what the people at the
processing plant are going to think, though.
email: dianafisher1@gmail.com
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