So in the mini-farm saga of my mother’s hippie version of my growing up years we left off at the arrival of the 100 baby chicks.
They were quickly transported to the built coop of my mother’s friend, Karen Flinders. And they quickly became sick. The vet pronounced them sick with a virus that made them not want to eat so they would starve to death.
Undaunted my mother and Karen began a two family regime of force feeding food into each chick. Everyone took shifts and did their part, either to catch a new chick for the adult to feed or transport the fed one to a new area and try to keep these areas separated.
My mother said they lost about half. When they were older and well enough we took our share home to our house where Mr. Flinders had built us a long coop. It was an incredibly well thought out chicken coop. An adult might have to stoop but a kid could walk mostly upright inside. Either end of this long rectangular coup had double-decker egg laying boxes with ramps for the chickens because the boxes were about 3 feet off the ground. In other words, easy human height to open from the outside to retrieve eggs daily.
The new chickens were added to the original six, one of which turned out to be a rooster and we had our group. A motley crew for certain. The original six were the classic Leghorn chicken (picture Foghorn Leghorn, white chicken, white eggs). About half of the others were what’s known as Buff chickens. Large (although not as large as the Leghorns) fluffy light brown feathers chickens which laid brown eggs. Pretty common looking. Ah, but they were balanced out by the South American breed called Aracana. Mostly dark feathered birds but they always had incredibly individual markings. And they laid blue/green tinted eggs. We even had some Banty chickens, littler than the others but feisty.
And then they all matured and the males began to crow. This is when I remind everyone we are smack dab in the residential area of Burbank. The noise is NOT appreciated. So, first we figure out who’s doing it and we pack them up to the vet. Because my mother has heard of this surgery called, “De-crowing”.
The vet says he’s never done it but he’s willing to learn if she’s willing to accept the possible results (death!) as he tries. She’s got a surplus of chickens so she agrees… since he’ll do it for cheap while he figures it out. After the sacrifice (death!) of several roosters he finally gets the hang of it and she’s left with several males who now cannot crow.
Ah, but THEY don’t know this. So it is a source of great amusement to bring over our friends and say… “Watch this!” The rooster would strut about, flap his wings, stretch his neck out and go “huh, huh-huh, huh-huuuuuuuh!” and think he’d accomplished something.
Hmmm… sounds like some men I know.