Chickens in Ramona
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
"I heard your roosters crowing this morning," announced Cousin Keith from Colorado. He and his wife were here in town for my mother's memorial service.
"I heard them during the night!" added Aunt Frieda. "Are they mixed up?"
"According to the book," teased Tooltime Tim, as he sat at the table waiting to eat with the rest of the gathered family, "they need light. So, it's no wonder they are screwed up." It drives him crazy that I read books about raising chickens — surely, everybody knows how to do this without a book. (I also cook potato peelings before I throw them to the chickens because the book says chickens can't digest raw potatoes. TTT scoffs at the notion. "We never cooked anything before we threw it to the chickens," he says with disdain.)
Not having really grown up with chickens on the farm, I have to learn from a book and the book does say that chickens need 12-14 hours of daylight for optimum egg production. I want good egg production this winter, so, I'm doing an experiment since I have two chicken flocks. One has light. One doesn't. So far, no diff! So much for the book. Meanwhile, the chicken conversation continued at the family table.
"Lots of people had chickens in town, when I was growing up," Keith remembered. "We didn't, but then again we didn't have a chicken house." He guessed that was the reason for their non-chicken status. Or maybe, Uncle Hank had enough of chickens on the farm and just didn't want to mess with them any longer when they moved to town.
Most of Ramona was blessed with chicken houses and chickens in those days-gone-by. Now we only have four chicken households — and two of those are mine!
"Shorty Brunner had chickens and Beulah Tatje," Keith is warming up his memory bank of chicken-owners in Ramona. Circa 1970. "Alice Lorei, Dave Beisel, Dan Albright (who lived south of Uncle John's), and Alex Sader all had chickens. And you know Jakie Brunner had chickens. Neva Applegate had some, too, if I remember right, and Curly Benhardt. They had a big old chicken house at Cousin's Corner (which used to be the Lutheran parsonage) but I don't remember any of the preachers having chickens. Us kids used to play in that old chicken house. You know how it is, any empty building was a place for kids to mess around."
No, I didn't know how it was and that's why the stories are so fascinating!
"Treva and Duke had chickens, too," continued Keith, the oldest of the Schubert boys. "I was working for Wilber Hanschu and came home one day and saw that someone had torn down that chicken house at the parsonage. Some of the church guys probably decided to get rid of it before kids hurt themselves there or it caught fire."
So goes life in a small town!
My chickens, snug in the house that someone built with a fancy brick floor, count themselves pretty lucky to have such a nice domain — especially in winter. Usually, they make a beeline for the door when I come to feed them and gather eggs. With snow on the ground they are much more cautious about exiting. One of the twin sisters dove for the door last night and made it outside and then didn't know exactly how to cope. She tiptoed around the house sounding her alarm call. This made Clifford, the rooster, really nervous so he flew up on the half door and sounded the "get here quick," call. He stood on the half-door and contemplated flying out with her for protection, took a look at all that cold snow and changed his tune, landing back on the chicken house floor a little ruffled and stopping to discuss it with the girls inside.
The black hen with red earrings that I call Aunt Gertie, made a brief charge for freedom but I blocked her with my left boot while balancing the water pail in one hand and the feed scoop and egg basket in the other. I wondered briefly if I was going to have to go for help to get that crazy hen back in the fold but the cats came to my rescue. They hadn't seen a chicken outside in weeks and this one looked mighty interesting. They gathered around her like lions stalking their prey and Miss Smarty Pants decided that the crack in the chicken house door that I briefly allowed looked pretty darn good and made a beeline back inside.
It's another day in the country. Live and learn!
