Who s next?
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
I miss my Uncle Hank. Whenever I needed fodder for a story that I was writing, all I needed to do was stop him on the way to the post office or call him on the phone. "Uncle Hank," I'd say, "I've got a question about chickens. Grandma always had them, so, what do you remember?"
And he'd start in — he always had an answer. He'd never say, "I don't remember anything about chickens." No siree, he'd grin that sly smile of his, lean back, and say, "Your grandmother always had lots of chickens. She raised them — after all they were often our bread and butter, too. We had fried chicken for Sunday dinner and all the relatives would be there. We had fried chicken in our lunch pail at school. Your grandma killed and plucked so many chickens that
Now what do I do now that he's gone? Who do I ask about chickens? I can ask Mom but I know what she will say already. "Don't talk to me about chickens. I had to help kill so many of them when I was a kid that I became a vegetarian." Story closed. That's it.
Not really. We've got chickens now and Mom is once again involved in the chicken business.
Being a chicken-rancher novice, I made the mistake of ordering chicks, generic, and not chicks, all female! Out of 31 chicks, I got 16 roosters. It took me this long to figure it all out. Can you believe my averages? And can you believe the mayhem in the chicken pen now that they are five months old?
"You're having a chicken situation out there," Mom called on the phone. "They are fighting so much that I had to close my curtains so I wouldn't have to see."
She was right. Pecking order be damned, we had World War III in the chicken house with 16 roosters under one roof.
"So what are you going to do?" My sister wanted to know. "If I would have thought we'd have to kill chickens I would never have agreed to get any." You know, sometimes it is good that we don't know the ending of a story in advance.
"I'm calling a taxidermist," I announced.
"You are going to have those roosters stuffed?" My mother was horrified. "I don't think I could look at them." And then she relented, "Well, maybe I could look at that white one — he's the meanest of the lot, right now, and I'm really mad at him. He won't let those poor hens alone and he's always starting a ruckus."
"Two of my lovely roosters went to live with our friend Paula — they had a reprieve because Paula's rooster died," I told Mom.
Well, we had a chicken massacre last night. After dark, I came in like the Angel of Death, picking my most beautiful roosters to be euthanized — that's a nice word for killing. I did the choosing, the wrapping, and the freezing. Tooltime Tim did the dirty work.
"It doesn't bother me," he said stoically. "It bothers me," I retorted. I had been gritting my teeth all night in anticipation of this moment. "It's just part of country life," Tim reminded me, "Don't watch."
It's another day in the country and peace has still not been restored to the chicken coup. Cocky, the Aracauna rooster has not declared himself king of the roost even though he's the smallest rooster in the pen. Last week, when the bigger boys were still mobile, Cocky couldn't even complete a crow without being chastised. The Duke, our feather-footed Brahma has not yet reached his full potential, but he seems relatively calm. Black Bart, my most beautiful rooster of all has been exiled to spend his days outside the hen house for some reason. Last week he was King of the Roost, dueling it out with Owlie, the bearded rooster, who will be preserved for posterity. "Be patient," says Triple T, "they are establishing a new pecking order."
And as for me? I'm establishing a picking order — who will be spared and who will become broth for noodle soup?
