The new thing is for we Americans to raise our own chickens. And let them have "free range." We're told that it will be a beautiful experience. One that will include organic eggs and fresh fried chicken dinners. Thank goodness I live in a condo with strict rules about livestock.
I have some friends who have chickens on their farm. Well, they live there only half the year so they, technically, rent the chickens. And they have some sad and gory chicken stories. As all of us who've raised chickens do.
First and foremost, chickens poop. I mean they poop way more than you'd think. I mean that when you walk into the coop you will sometimes slip on the poop and fall into the poop so that you are sort of covered in it and all you hear when you get back to the house is "Why did it take you so long to gather those eggs?"
When I was a child, spending summers on my aunt and uncle's farm in Southern Indiana, we had chickens. Egg gathering was my job. Besides the aforementioned poop, I was afraid of the chickens. Some of them were mean.
Mostly they were in coops but a few at a time got to be yard chickens. The forerunners of free rangers. They must have thought that they had reached the top of the heap but the truth was that when they hit the yard, their days were numbered.
Because on Sunday mornings my aunt would chase down two or three chickens, ring their necks, and let the bodies, spurting out blood, dance around the yard - right before my eyes. Then they were dunked in hot water and I had to help take off the feathers before they were cleaned and made ready to fry for Sunday dinner.
I'm surprised I'm not damaged by all that violence.
When my son was 18 years old he went on a mission trip to Haiti. While he and his friends were repairing a school roof an old lady came by, built a little pen and put chickens in it. The young men climbed down from the roof and played with the chickens.
Later, and to the great surprise of my son and his city friends, she came back, chopped off their heads and prepared them for the workers' lunch.
My son later became a big game hunter. I hope he wasn't influenced by the old lady and the chickens.
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