How Many Chickens Is Enough Chickens?
Hindsight, Chapter 1, Part 3.
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January 2020.
Will craned his head to look at her screen showing the bare-looking map of a stretch of straight country road.
“That’s the address,” Juss said. She switched to satellite view, revealing lines and patches of trees separating the fields, and, here and there along the road, a house, usually with a long driveway, often with a number of outbuildings.
“So which one is it?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She switched to street view, and navigated to the end of a driveway, where the blue 911 sign revealed the street number, if you could get the camera placement correct and make it out. “Nope. Not that one.”
They’d run into this difficulty when looking for houses last year. The location indicated on the map was often hundreds of meters from the true location of the house they were looking for. It only ever happened on country roads though.
Juss clicked along the street and realized she was heading in the wrong direction, so she pulled the perspective around and began progress back. It was the next house in the other direction. Not far off after all.
It looked a little farm-like. A long driveway, a Victorian house, and a barn. The driveway looped around a massive tree, depicted in full leaf. And off to one side an orange school bus sat beside a red pick up.
“Look,” Juss said. “A chicken!” When she zoomed in, they could make out a couple of other potential birds too.
Juss zoomed out back to satellite view, and they located the correct house by the presence of the school bus. She zoomed out some more, and they got their bearings, figuring out how to get to it through Tamworth.
*
The arrangements were flexible, so they had time to stop at a little cafe on the main street. A rustic little thing, and a bit disorganized, but the treats were tasty, and the coffee fresh.
Heading through the village, there was a sign for a book shop. It looked like it was in someone’s garage. A fancy garage, bit still.
Juss cooed at it, and he knew she was making a mental note to come back in the summer. On the other side of the road was a large red-brick building with a grand veranda, and signs promising coffee and tarts. Too bad they had already eaten. But the building also advertised artisan ice cream, so that was another reason to come back in the summer. He imagined sitting on that veranda with a cool breeze on a hot sunny day, while Juss leafed through her new old book. He smiled.
Ah, the simple life.
They continued, over a bridge, around a corner, and suddenly they were out of the village and between the fields. A couple of turns, and they were on the right road. Then, on the left, a giant bare maple, and a snow-packed school bus parked under it. They’d found the right place.
Will parked up, and they both got out.
Juss walked up to the door and knocked. Dogs barked right away.
A woman could be heard yelling at the dogs and after a moment the door opened, one of the immense creatures at her side, held by the collar.
“Hi, I’m Juss, I’m here about the Silkie rooster?”
“Oh, hi! Let me call Ernie! Come on in!”
The woman crossed the room dragging the dog with her, leaving the door open for them.
They stepped in. The place was chaotic. Boots, coats, boxes, and a cage of brooding chicks with an incandescent bulb over them, up on a countertop.
Juss closed the door behind her, and bent to take off her boots.
“Oh, don’t bother, this is the mud room, we’re in and out of here all the time.” The call she’d made rang through and she turned away, “Yeah, tell Ernie the people are here for the roo? Thanks. Yeah, sounds good!”
The woman turned and smiled. “I’m Cat, by the way.”
They introduced themselves.
The dog wriggled free and came to Juss, tail wagging happily. He was dark, with short fur, and friendly black eyes.
Juss petted him, and he sat like a good boy. “Sorry if we came at the wrong time, I thought—” she began.
“Oh no, he’s just helping out some neighbours, he’s literally a minute away. You’re right on time!”
“What breed are these?” Will asked, gamely nodding at the chicks.
“Oh, just a mix. Some are Marans, some are Silkies, some are Barnfelder.” She bustled through to another room, and called them through. “And here we have Chanteclers, a couple weeks older, as you can see.”
This cage was on the floor, and also wrapped in clear plastic, mainly to keep the dust and dander down, he supposed. He couldn’t fathom how these people could cope with chickens inside their actual house, even if this was more like a connected outbuilding or converted garage.
He noticed a small humming machine, with eggs inside it. “And you have some incubating too!”
“Oh yeah, these are something special. An experiment. A treat, really. So damn expensive! Pardon ….” The lady blushed, and went on. “We got those in the mail, from people in Quebec. They’re Marraduna eggs. They’re Basque, and quite rare in Canada. Look them up, oh they do look pretty. And they are supposed to be good natured and winter hardy.”
“Is that two dozen eggs?” Will peered inside.
“Yeah. Not sure if they’re all good. Mailing, you see, too long in the cold or on a truck and they just don’t all hatch. I’ll be happy if we get any of them! Then we’ll see if the stories are true!”
“Good luck!” Will said.
The woman beamed.
The dogs suddenly went off, barking and going mad. The loose one scrabbled at the door.
Ernie was here.
A man came in through the same door, a portly guy, older than Cat seemed, and introduced himself, while fussing the black dog.
Will returned the favour and then said, “Cat was just showing us the chicks.”
“Ah, yeah, we always got chicks on the go! Trying new ones, doing more of the matches we like! It never ends. Winter slows us down a bit, but nothing stops us!”
Ernie stomped through the room, trailing mud and slush, and said, “I should show you the little guy!”
He led them outside, out a back door, which revealed a series of sheds and enclosures.
These people really had a lot going on. Will tried to wrap his mind around how many runs there were, and how many little projects were ongoing. Ernie led them between two long runs to an outbuilding. When they stepped inside, the smell took his breath away.
“That’s something powerful, right?” Ernie said, noticing.
“Uh, oh, it’s fine!” Will lied.
Ernie just laughed. “Here’s the little guy.”
The Silkie rooster was white and fluffy. His fur-like feathers were tipped in grey on the ends of the wings and his tail, but the rest of him was white. He had fierce black eyes, and a knot-like black comb, surrounded by the mess of white hair on his head. Will thought he looked mean.
Ernie opened the cage, and grabbed the bird. The rooster made a poor attempt of getting away, and it looked like Ernie’s hand had just scooped him up. Ernie cradled the bird in his arm, like it was the most natural thing in the world to carry a rooster about.
“Are you in the market for anything?”
“No,” Juss said, quickly. “We got a few hens a couple of weeks ago, and we’re good for now. I just really liked the look of your rooster.”
“And can’t beat the price, either?” Ernie laughed, making it sound like his joke was good-natured. “But he’s not the only one we’re ready to part with. Come on, let me show you.”
Will opened his mouth to protest, but Ernie was already half way to the other end of the building.
Juss followed after the guy, and then cooed in delight. “Will, a Silkie hen!”
When he saw her, he could see why Juss was so taken. The hen was just about the cutest thing he had ever seen, with a fluffy globe of hair on her head and her little beak poking out from under it. He couldn’t help but smile.
Juss looked at Will.
Will looked at Juss.
“We’re not here for hens, really,” Juss said. She sighed.
“How much is she going for?” Will asked.
Juss looked over, her eyes bright. It just about melted Will’s heart.
Ernie said, “Oh, twenty bucks. She’s young. She’s his cousin. Hatched last January. The rooster’s from the summer.”
Will said, “Sure. We can fit two birds in the box we brought.”
Ernie opened the cage and in moments had the hen cradled in his other arm. “If you like Silkies, take a look at these beauties.”
Somehow he managed to open the door with his hands full of chickens, and led them into another room.
This one had a long mesh enclosure along one wall, with chickens inside.
“Easter eggers,” Ernie said. “Some lay pink, some blue, some green. What do you think?”
Will leaned over to look at the birds. Their feathers were almost striped, trimmed in colour. Some were black and white, others black and red, some red and grey. They were all so beautiful.
“Like Art Deco chickens,” Juss said.
Ernie shrugged at that, but said, “What do you say? Do you see a couple that you like?”
Juss nodded.
“Pick two,” Will said, softly.
Ernie said, “I’ll get you a box for these two Silkies, and then the two EEs can go in the box you brought.” He went out of the room, leaving them alone.
“Are we being silly?” Juss asked.
“Just promise me we’ll never go to an animal shelter! We’d end up adopting half the place!”
Juss laughed.
It was funny because it was true. They could cope with a few extra chickens, he supposed. But this could all get out of hand so quickly. “And you’ll have to stop going on Kijiji ….”
She laughed again.
Ernie returned, and thrust the boxed chickens into Will’s arms. The box had air holes, so they were going to be fine.
He opened the gate to the enclosure, and said, “Here chicky chicky chicky!”
After some convincing, and cajoling, he managed to grab two of them, and stood, kicking the gate closed. “What do you think to these two?”
Juss nodded. “They’re beautiful!”
One was a light red or buff colour, with white and grey undertones. The other was mainly red and brown, with grey and black undertones. Both were spectacular, but so large compared to the Silkies. Had they bitten off more than they could chew?
“How about forty bucks for the three hens?” Ernie looked from Will to Juss and back to Will.
“Deal.”
Ernie led them back to the car, around the outside of the house, under the bare maple, and Will held the box open for the chickens.
Will rummaged for his wallet, and handed over the cash.
Ernie slipped it into his pocket and said, “If you ever want any more, just drop me a line on Kijiji, or just come on over if you’re passing through.”
Will nodded, smiled, and thanked him.
Juss sat in the front on the way home, as there was no room in the back with two large boxes. She kept glancing back at the boxes. The chickens were making plenty of noise. It sounded like they were pecking and scratching. Probably unhappy at the confinement.
“Are they okay?” Will asked.
“I think so.”
“Will all these birds fit in the coop?” He realized it was a little late to be asking that now.
“Yes? I think so.”
“Are they going to be okay? Together, I mean?”
Juss looked over. “Well, really we should be quarantining them for a couple of weeks. Making sure they don’t have parasites or anything.”
“Parasites? Quarantine?”
“Oh, relax! Chickens have all kinds of things, and all the problems have solutions, so don’t worry about it. I wasn’t worried about putting one rooster in with the brown hens, but now we are adding four new birds at once. We really should have isolated them first.”
“How would we do that?”
“Dog crates. Pet carriers. Some people build a quarantine run.”
“It’s January.”
“I know, hon.”
“Well we don’t have any of those things, so they’ll all just have to go in together and get used to each other. They won’t hurt each other will they?”
“There might be fireworks. The brown hens rule the territory. These new four are interlopers, but at least these ones are all coming in at once. The social order will be shaken up for a while, but they’ll figure things out for themselves.”
“Are they really all that complicated?”
“You wait and see!”
“Sounds ominous!”
“We should get a dog crate anyway,” Juss said.
“Bit late for that.”
“Not really. We’ll need to put the chicks somewhere when they hatch. Although maybe a plastic tote is better for that.”
“Chicks? We don’t have the rooster home yet! Besides, we don’t have any of the machines for hatching. You see that big incubator those guys had? Imagine, twenty-four little chickens running around!”
“Uh, yeah, I saw it.”
“Juss?”
She looked over at him, sheepishly.
“What did you do?”
“Uh, well, the incubator and brooder will be here next week.”
Will laughed raucously, trying to still pay attention to the road.
“And so will the dog crate.”
He laughed even more.
“What’s so funny?” She sounded a bit embarrassed, and maybe even offended.
“You had this all planned out!”
“I find your accusation spurious and unwarranted,” she replied, with excessive gravitas.
“And now we’ll get Silkie chicks too!”
Juss grinned. “Oh, you should see them, Will! Silkie chicks are so cute!”
“All in good time,” he said.
“And we can pick up a tote from the store in town ….”
*
The coop was mainly an old dining table and a small cabinet, wrapped in hardware cloth. The whole setup was in the shelter of a metal-roofed carport on the south side of the house. The front of the carport was open. This was where the previous owner had parked his boat. The back end was closed up with a home-built wooden wall. When the wind was from the east, the whole carport was quite sheltered, but when the wind came over the hill from the west, it whistled through.
Will and Juss crouched outside the coop beside the two boxes. They wanted to make friends with the new birds, but it was cold, and the birds were stressed out from the journey, so in the end it was all they could do to bundle each bird individually through the gate at the front of the coop, at one of the narrow ends of the dining table.
There were no immediate fireworks. The brown hens stayed well away from the new arrivals. The new arrivals cowered close to the gate. They all just looked at each other. Then one of the brown hens decided to make a stand, and came to let the newbies know who was boss around here. The darker Easter Egger yelped, and then pecked back. The Easter Eggers were a bit larger than the original four hens, but had the disadvantage of knowing they were the invaders. The Silkie rooster, however, took one look at the brown hen, and pecked her head.
Juss gasped in surprise.
“What’s he doing?” Will asked.
“He’s getting fresh,” she said.
“It doesn’t look consensual.”
“It isn’t.”
“We should do something then.”
“No, it’s never consensual with chickens. The rooster gets action when he wants it. Either the easy way or the hard way.”
“He forces them?”
“Kind of. He is the boss, and makes certain advances. If they don’t accept him, he has to try to make them. If they do, things go a lot more smoothly. If he charms them sufficiently, they’ll even crouch for him.”
“Is that consent?”
“Maybe. But should you get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, or do you fight?”
“‘Lie back and think of England’? No way! I fucking fight! What the hell is this?”
“Calm down, you’re scaring the chickens!”
He was. He tried to relax.
“It’s just the way they do it. It’s not really like in humans.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“It’s not up to you to like it or not. It’s the way chickens are.”
As if to underscore Juss’ point, the rooster got the brown hen under him, and something happened that Will couldn’t quite make out under all those feathers, and then the rooster dismounted and did a little dance around the hen. And she just stood there and accepted it.
“There, you see?”
“That’s it?”
“I think he’s going to rule the roost in no time.”
“I guess we should leave them to it then,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
She agreed.
There was plenty of food, and plenty of water. The chickens would be all right for a while.
*
Will stood in the kitchen with the spent teabags when Juss came in from the garage.
“All fine,” she said.
“Yeah? No blood?”
“Nope. No blood. Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“Well the darker Easter Egger is fighting with one of the brown ones. Kirsty, I think.”
“Should we intervene?”
“No, we should let them figure things out for themselves.”
“Okay. Here’s your tea.”
“Thanks.”
They sat next to each other on the couch.
“Thought of a name for the newbies yet?”
She smiled. “I was thinking Skipper for the rooster. He’s going to be the captain of the flock, after all.”
“Oh I like that. Skip. Skipper. And the hens?”
“Well, the Silkie hen is very enthusiastic about the feed. So Purina?”
Will laughed. “And what about the others?”
“I have no idea. Maybe something art related, because of how pretty they are?”
“Well, the names will come. It took us a week to name the brown ones.”
She glanced over at his laptop as the screen went to sleep. “What’s new in the world?”
“It’s all about the impeachment. Same old same old.”
“They didn’t impeach him for anything else he’s done. Is it really going to be any different this time?”
“I guess not. But notice how the air strike came out of nowhere to distract everyone. He’s good at distractions, I’ll give him that much.”
“I just don’t know how anyone can support him.”
“Well, he’s not our president, so not our problem, right?” He knew it wasn't quite that simple.
“I guess.” She sighed.
“Did you see the story about China?” He was sick of politics, and was trying to change the subject. “An outbreak.”
“No. Bird flu?”
“No, not flu, something like a cold, but on steroids. People are dying, they say.”
“Oh, that’s terrible.”
“A city called Wuhan.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Me either. Somewhere in the middle, apparently. Ten million people.” A city the size of Toronto and he’d never even heard of it. And an outbreak might be devastating for China All those people crammed together.
She shrugged. “So, what do you want for dinner?”
He thought for a moment, and then grinned. “Chicken?”
Thanks for reading!
Continue reading with the next part on Sunday!
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