Country Roads

Renee Kiff
Just two days of rain and the clucks have coop-fever. If they
snarled, they’d be snarling. Henry the Highminded, our rooster who
occupies the lowest rung of the pecking order has been granted
freedom of flight by the woman wielding the scissors. It would be
cruel and unusual punishment to shorten his wings.
Henry and his hen are the only two fowls roaming the farm. There
were others until last week, who had the whole three acres to hunt
for bugs, slugs, rotten fruit. It was as it should be until the
spring flowers started their ascension.
“You’ve got to do something with those chickens,” complained the
flower grower. “They’re ruining my spring flowers. They’ve
destroyed a whole ranuncula bed!”
When you approach a flock of chickens with scissors in your
pocket and a bird net in your hand you find out that a lifetime of
feeding, watering, cleaning and protecting evaporates immediately.
You are Irene the Terrible.
Clipping chicken wings is much harder on live birds than ones
wrapped up in plastic on your kitchen counter, particularly when
they are on birds enjoying the freedom of a full farm. The bird has
a terrific advantage. It can scoot under a bush, fly over a fence,
and knows with amazing accuracy where your net is going to land,
planning ahead to not be there under it.
Three days later we had the proper birds clipped and we’d
learned a few things: 1) little boys that play baseball and soccer
are faster with a bird net than their grandmother; 2) it takes four
humans to corner one hen; 3) don’t enlist terrier dogs to assist in
the chase. Once deprived of their flight the cropped birds pace
back and forth trying to figure out an escape. A week later, they
blend in with their fellow birds, resigned to their limited
space.
Henry, however, poses a very different problem. Being harassed
by the other roosters, including three banty guys, the meanest of
all to him, we don’t want to subject Henry to a life with his
tormentors.
In a prior article, I wrote that Henry waits until the last rays
of the sun before he jumps up onto the potato vine atop the wire
mesh surrounding the chicken yard and coop, posted there until I
open the chicken house door. He glances in to see who and how many
are waiting for him and then flies like an owl in a Harry Potter
movie directly to the top of the rabbit cage, continuing on to the
roof beams. They (you are about to discover who the famous ‘they’
are: the chickens already occupying perches!) grudgingly allow him
safety and warmth for the night.
Yesterday in the rain storm, all the clucks were in-house, dry
and defensive. Outside, a lone white rooster played guardian at the
door opening out to the chicken yard. Why was he still outside?
Henry was in the potato vine above him awaiting nightfall and Mr.
White Rooster did not want Henry to descend any earlier.
Two or three hours in a downpour really ruins a hair-do. That’s
nothing compared to a fully feathered bird. What a sad sight and I
can view this bedraggled bird from the comfort of my kitchen, where
I see Henry’s head rising above the vine, pelted by the rain.
“I’m going to see if I can fool Henry into going in early.“
Each time I tried to urge him into the coop he’d bolt in the
opposite direction.
“Henry — why don’t you go inside?”
“What? You want me to go in there with the Gestapo Guys still
occupying the floor? They may be eight inches high but they still
hurt. No way. Not until dusk. I’m just up here biding my time.
Being wet is better than getting pecked.”
He’s right. I got scratched on my leg last week when I made the
mistake of wearing shorts to do my egg gathering. A proud, defiant
little banty crowed his heartiest at my discomfort.
And, using intelligent passivity, Henry is sporting brand new
tail feathers which are advancing inch by inch, as long as he and
they have room to spread.
Renee Kiff weeds and writes at her family farm in Alexander
Valley.