AS A CHILD, I never thought of chickens as pets, or as producers of eggs. My only contact with them was the chicken leg on my plate at dinner. It wasn’t that I was unfamiliar with the killing of game or fowl for food. My parents both came from families where hunting was a way of life. I had plenty of experience with the killing and processing of deer, squirrels, rabbits, frogs, pheasant, grouse, and woodcock. But, I had no encounters with chickens, roosters, freshly-laid eggs, and chopping blocks. That lifestyle was a generation removed from me.
Nevertheless, I channeled that era as I trolled my grandfather’s orchards of apples, peaches, apricots, cherries, and pears. I appreciated the abundance there and in my aunt’s asparagus patch and vegetable garden. These early impressions produced in me a longing I have sustained into adulthood – a ridiculously idealized construction of agrarian life.
This conceptualization is where I lay the blame for my becoming enamored with chickens. When given the opportunity to roam freely, they are beautiful. Chickens come in all different colors, sizes, and featherings. They are very social with each other, interested in bugs, vegetation, and scraps, and are very curious about humans. They love to talk, announce the arrival of their eggs, and warn of perceived dangers. Many are unopposed to company – hopping up on a vacant chair or lap, crooking a neck to see what you are doing, or sharing some shuteye in the shade.
Is it any wonder that on February 6, 2008, I made the decision to jump out of my fantasy and into reality by ordering a dozen chicks? Back then, I had no idea one of those original adorable, fuzzy, peeping chicks would be alive today. I did not know I would be blessed, these ten-and-a-half years (and counting) later, with Stella.
I’ve had experience with other animals, the usual parade of pets when you have a home with children. We were good with dogs – Woody, Bo, Sela, and Penny, and rabbits – Thumper, Snuggles, and Albert, as well as the occasional odd pet like Walkie Talkie, our turtle, and Hermie, our hermit crab.
My only experience with newborn animals was with our two “female” rabbits, Thumper and Snuggles. I’ll never forget that chilly Upper Michigan fall/winter day in November when my then eight-year-old daughter, Piper, came running up to me with blue eyes wide with shock saying, “Mom! Snuggles had babies!”
We’d noticed she had been pulling fur from her neck, but we wrote it off as normal rabbit preparation for winter. We never considered Snuggles was making a nest. After all, we thought Thumper and Snuggles were both female. Whip-smart farmers that we are, we quickly assessed the situation and made moves to insure the babies didn’t freeze to death by bringing the whole operation inside to our basement.
When it came time to make an informed decision about my desire to explore raising baby chicks, I’d learned a few things – like, “Let’s not bring the chickens in the house.” My olfactory memories of 12 rabbits in the basement was not the sentimental inspiration spurring me on, though the baby bunnies in their teacup-size stage were precious.
Fortunately, my darling father grew up working on his grandfather’s farm and possessed actual practical information about raising chickens. He and his best friend, Charlie, made me a brooder designed to keep baby chicks warm (90 degrees). They built a luxury apartment of a brooder for my chicks featuring a warming room, complete with multiple light bulbs and a thermometer – adjustable for perfect atmospheric temperature – and a play area for when they got bigger and wanted to explore the grass on sunny days. The apparatus came with heavy swinging doors that operated from the top as well as peepholes on the side where you could look at the chicks and the thermometer without losing all of the heat by opening the “roof.” Stella and her fellow “clutch-mates” loved it.
Over the years, I’ve purchased three batches of chicks – a dozen at a time. They’ve come in the mail and have been collected from the post office at 5 am, before official business hours begin. It was exciting going into a federal building in the dark of night through the back employee entrance. Anyone entering the holding area can hear the peeps of the babies from their ventilated box. Chicks can survive for three days on their yolk sac after they are born. It’s especially important in rural, northern Michigan – where “guaranteed overnight delivery” takes two or three days – to get the chicks home to food and water and their 90-degree heat nest as soon as possible.
As the mother of four children, our various baby chicks have been christened with all sorts of names: Cocoa Puff, Chubby, Pookie Olive, Lighty & Darky, for example. The name Stella comes from the Latin word for “star” – which, of course, she is. If we were serious farmers, and culled our hens after two cycles of laying – which is common – we would likely discourage our children from this naming practice.
Nevertheless, we’ve eaten these christened chickens at various times over the years. After our first fox attack, it seemed wasteful to not process the birds for food. The number of people who were shocked that we would eat our chickens was 100%. “How could you eat something that had a name? What did your children think?” What I thought was, “This is a great opportunity for my family to see how much work it is to make food” and that “my children need to understand that chicken doesn’t come from a store with cellophane and styrofoam.”
Over the years, fox have twice gotten into the run and attacked our chickens. The first time, half the flock was culled. It was shocking and terribly sad. As a novice chicken farmer, it struck me as both vicious and wasteful. The fox took only one chicken for food and killed the rest for sport. In response, we increased the height of the fencing to better protect the run.
After that trauma and in a bid for survival, two of the chickens, Sweetie and the canny Stella, took it upon themselves to learn how to fly out of the run. One morning I stepped outside to perform my chores and there they were sitting on the wood pile. At first, we would catch them and put them back in the pen. They ignored our efforts and kept on flying out at will, lighting atop various trees, the garage, and fence posts, but their favorite spot to roost came to be on the back of our deck chairs. There was one in particular they favored and were often spotted there, nestling close to each other as they hung out with our family in the sunshine.
Several years later, a fox attacked again. The assault claimed the lives of all the older chickens – except Stella.
After this, our fencing went up higher still and we decided the fox were not our friends. Word got out up and down the street and pretty soon neighbors would call us if they saw a fox go by their house. “He’s running along the dune and headed in your direction!”
One morning, I was in my kitchen having coffee, petting the dog, and looking out the window at my garden. All of a sudden, a fox ambled across my line of vision, trotting towards the woods. I let out a shriek and went charging out the front door, robe flapping in the wind, and took off barefoot after the fox, intent on chasing it away. Pretty soon, out of the corner of my eye, I see my dog, Sela, running all-out beside me. There was an honest-to-goodness time-traveling moment of mythical synchronicity when I experienced myself as the Greek goddess Diana hunting prey with her trusty dog. The fox was soon out of sight, no worse for wear and probably barking his foxy laugh all the way to his den.
I love being a witness to Stella in her venerable old age. As her eleventh birthday approaches, it takes longer for her to hop off the roost, leaving our other three chickens to get at the scratch or the scraps first. She is not at the bottom of the pecking order – for which I’m grateful – as that is a real thing and unpleasant for the bird that is. I believe she knows my voice – as she comes running when she hears it – eager to see what treat I might have, or if I’m going to take her adventuring out of the coop and into the yard like when she was young. She’ll accept food from anyone, but in her heart I know she is always looking for me, waiting to hear my morning greeting of, “Where’s Stella?” I’m grateful every day I can answer, “There she is!”
BELOW IS THE LINK TO A MINING JOURNAL ARTICLE CELEBRATING STELLA’S 12TH BIRTHDAY.
https://www.miningjournal.net/life/2020/05/area-chicken-marking-milestone-birthday/
Heather Mlsna is a professional writer. Her business, Last Letters/No Regrets, seeks to promote healing and remembrance through writing. It serves individuals seeking to express themselves on paper, but who need help getting started. Heather can be reached at lastlettersmqt@gmail.com. (https://lastlettersnoregrets.com)