What I Love About My Chickens
I'm afraid this essay mostly won't be very original, so I apologize right off the top. What I love about my chickens is partly what we all love about them. They're pretty. They're funny. They're personable. Chickenable? Is that a word? Yeah, it is now, I just made it up! They keep the nasty bug population down - think chiggers and ticks! That makes them useful, and that's completely aside from the obvious, the eggs and meat! (Shh, we don't talk about meat in front of them!) I like the sounds they make as they go about their day, talking to each other. I even have a baby monitor in the hen house so I can hear them when I'm here in the house.
So none of this is news to anyone reading this. Y'all are nodding your heads, maybe smiling a little in recognition and thinking how familiar this all sounds. Maybe some of you even have lap chickens or house chickens so you're more closely tied to your cluckers than I am to mine.
But here's the thing that really, REALLY gets me about my chickens. You see, I think sometimes we forget that they really are BIRDS. They are, essentially, wild animals. They're not like dogs or cats that have grown up underfoot for millenia and expect to be underfoot and in our beds, no. Mostly they live outdoors in the elements, with some modifications. They are more like cardinals and sparrows and bluejays than they are like puppies and kittens, and we forget that. We go outside in all weather and toss them a handful of scratch or lettuce and instead of running away from us in terror like an opossum, a fox or even a magpie would do, they come running TOWARD us to share in our bounty like good neighbors. They dine at our feet, trusting and unafraid. What a gift they give us in their trust! Deer won't cluster around us like this, in most cases. Raccoons won't, nor bobcats or even crows. But chickens ... chickens are the animals on the border between wild and domestic. I can't reach down and pick one up (maybe you can, lucky you!), but they are so close I ALMOST could. I have the ILLUSION that they are tame, but illusion is all it is. Because in reality, they are not. They keep their distance and cherish their autonomy. They remain, ultimately, wild. That closeness is, as I say, merely an illusion.
And that illusion is what I love most about them.
I'm afraid this essay mostly won't be very original, so I apologize right off the top. What I love about my chickens is partly what we all love about them. They're pretty. They're funny. They're personable. Chickenable? Is that a word? Yeah, it is now, I just made it up! They keep the nasty bug population down - think chiggers and ticks! That makes them useful, and that's completely aside from the obvious, the eggs and meat! (Shh, we don't talk about meat in front of them!) I like the sounds they make as they go about their day, talking to each other. I even have a baby monitor in the hen house so I can hear them when I'm here in the house.
So none of this is news to anyone reading this. Y'all are nodding your heads, maybe smiling a little in recognition and thinking how familiar this all sounds. Maybe some of you even have lap chickens or house chickens so you're more closely tied to your cluckers than I am to mine.
But here's the thing that really, REALLY gets me about my chickens. You see, I think sometimes we forget that they really are BIRDS. They are, essentially, wild animals. They're not like dogs or cats that have grown up underfoot for millenia and expect to be underfoot and in our beds, no. Mostly they live outdoors in the elements, with some modifications. They are more like cardinals and sparrows and bluejays than they are like puppies and kittens, and we forget that. We go outside in all weather and toss them a handful of scratch or lettuce and instead of running away from us in terror like an opossum, a fox or even a magpie would do, they come running TOWARD us to share in our bounty like good neighbors. They dine at our feet, trusting and unafraid. What a gift they give us in their trust! Deer won't cluster around us like this, in most cases. Raccoons won't, nor bobcats or even crows. But chickens ... chickens are the animals on the border between wild and domestic. I can't reach down and pick one up (maybe you can, lucky you!), but they are so close I ALMOST could. I have the ILLUSION that they are tame, but illusion is all it is. Because in reality, they are not. They keep their distance and cherish their autonomy. They remain, ultimately, wild. That closeness is, as I say, merely an illusion.
And that illusion is what I love most about them.
I want no tears at my memorial!
