Nowhere Near the Sticks

When the sound first came, it roused me enough to open my eyes and check if my husband was still asleep. It was just after 6 a.m., but his eyes were wide. “Did you hear that?” “Yes.” The sound came again. I pulled myself up on my elbows and looked toward our open windows. The sound had come from the east, from the window that most definitely did not face our chicken coop. Right?

“That’s not my rooster,” I said, and for a moment I believed it.

The crowing came again, tentative and incomplete, but undeniably from the west. “That’s not my rooster?” I asked, weakly. I rolled out of bed and walked to the window facing the coop. Crowing. I came back to bed, pulled a sheet up to my neck, and nodded at my husband.

“Yep, that’s my rooster.”

And then, with every subsequent crow, we doubled up with laughter.  

* * * * *

Pittsburgh Code, Title Nine, Zoning Code, Article V, Chapter 911 stipulates:

For property with a minimum of two-thousand square feet in size, the resident is permitted five chickens or ducks. For every additional one-thousand square feet of property, the resident is permitted one additional chicken or duck, with no other livestock for lots under ten thousand square feet.

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photo by Kham Tran

Also,

Roosters are not permitted.

* * * * *

“So what do we do with it, uhm, him?” I asked, knowing that my husband didn’t know the answer.

We ran through the possibilities: Kill and eat him? No. The kids were teetering toward vegetarianism as it was. We couldn’t chance it. Keep him? No. We could lose the rest of the flock if someone called the urban chicken police. (How does one call the urban chicken police?) Take him back to the farm that sold him to us as a female chick? Maybe. But was that really worth the hour-long drive? Give him to friends and let them do whatever they please with him? Probably. But who?

This was going to take a few days to figure out.

* * * * *

The next morning, I sat in a plastic green chair just after sunrise and watched our exiled rooster pace. The hens were locked up; he was locked out. He wanted to be with the flock, but after he had awoken to his rooster-hood, he began strutting, pecking, and chasing the hens. The smaller birds has stopped eating and hid in the nesting box, like they did during a raccoon attack.

Aggressive masculinity. Unacceptable.

Now the hens were eating again, and the rooster watched them from the other side of the fence. “We’re probably making him neurotic,” I commented to my husband, who had come outside to see what I was doing, “Not allowing him to follow his instincts and all.”  

“Yeah, probably doesn’t matter, though. He’s not staying here.”

“It’s too bad. I like his crow. And he’s a gorgeous bird,” I said, my eyes following the bright ring of feathers around his neck. “If we lived in the country, maybe they’d all figure it out in a bigger space.”

“They’d have to,” he said, “We’d need a rooster to protect the hens if we lived in the sticks.”

Squawk! Feathers flew as the rooster poked his beak though the chicken wire. The hens scattered, and I sighed. Maybe the city ordinance is a blessing. 

Maybe. But I will miss my rooster, if not his bullying behavior. I’ve never had such a wake-up call.  

* * * * *

jen bio YAH

Epilogue: After a chorus of ‘no, thank you’ from friends and a scroll through the ‘Free Rooster!!’ ads on Craigslist, the husband of this story put on his big-farmer overalls and beheaded the beast. A female observer, who had served with the Peace Corps in rural Rwanda, approved his methods and asked to be included in the Coq au Vin feast.

The children and their mother were conspicuously absent that evening.

 

 

One Fine Feathered Day

In May 2012 I pulled up behind a truck, parked just two neighborhoods from my own. The seller and I had been texting to arrange the exchange: “I’ve got your pullets.” “Great. Be there in 10.” “Just look for a white truck. Remember to bring cash.”

It was all over quickly, and I was on my way, a cardboard box on the passenger seat, grinning madly at the scratching noises and small bock-caws coming from inside it. I called my husband, “I’ve got them! Tell everyone the six of us are on our way!”

It was an exclamation point kind of morning. It was the morning we brought our chickens home.

****

We had been preparing for months for their arrival. We attended an information session at the library, searched the chicken internet universe for tips, and dog-eared a book called “City Chicks.”  Along the way, we built the coop.

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(Note the skylight. These are some spoiled hens.)

We researched nutrition, planned for pest control, and amused the well-worn country folk at Tractor Supply every time we went north to visit my parents. What are your organic options? Do you sell food-grade diatomaceous earth?  What about treats? Is this waterer BPA-free?

Okay, we really didn’t ask the last one. They were still recovering from our discussion of non-GMO based layer feed.

Now. Why did we do all this? Well, originally we thought that keeping hens would save us money, but this hasn’t been the case. On one hand you’ve got housing, food and chicken accessories (waterer, heat lamp, etc.). On the other, you have… not nearly as many eggs as you would expect.

Here is the deal with chickens and eggs: First, they have to be old enough to lay. Second, they can’t be broody, molting or recovering from a traumatic predator attack (a story for another post). Third, it can’t be winter. Fourth, you have to be able to find the eggs…

Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

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 Answer: To hide her eggs in the abandoned lot on the other side.

Let’s just say that the financial incentives aren’t overwhelming, but the daily Easter Egg hunts are a lot of fun.

****

So, why chickens? My answer is more of a hunch than a full-blown philosophy, but I suspect we keep chickens (and keep cleaning out their coop) because we love the sense of connection they give us.

An egg in a styrofoam carton is just an egg, but an egg that appears after “Queenie” struts out of the coop and announces her accomplishment to the neighborhood (bock, bock, bock, baCAW!) is something more. “It’s still warm, Mom,” my daughter informs me, “and guess what, it came out of the chicken’s butt!” “Eww!” the rest of the kids collapse into giggles, and then start chanting, “chickens butt, chickens butt, chickens butt!”

Maybe it’s just a bit disgusting, but I like it that my children know–and by ‘know’ I mean through immediate experience–that eggs come from chickens’ butts. Not from egg factories, not from sanitary supermarkets, but from animals that poop, crow, and cross the road. Eggs come, and thus breakfast comes, from animals who are part of our daily lives.

This is why we will keep keeping chickens–not because it is terribly practical, at least in the way we do it–but because they remind us that food exists in a web of connections beyond buying and selling. Eggs exist because chickens exist, and our particular chickens exist because we fill their feeder and lock up the coop at night.

I’m glad we do. The eggs are amazing.

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(photo by Emily Duff, http://family2table.blogspot.com/2013/02/chicken-or-egg.html)