Cover Me I'm Going In.
You may remember that earlier in the year we had to clip John's wings. She kept flying over into next door's garden and, as they have a lovely but enthusiastic lurcher we thought that in the interest of safety and sanity we would limit her access.All was going swimmingly, John and I were almost back on clucking terms, when Henrietta Chicken decided she was ready to investigate the world at large.
Henrietta is the first to leap on you at the first sign of a meal worm or a sunflower seed. She has come a long way from her early timidity and, we think, was the first to lay an egg. She has lovely speckled feathers and, aside from the patch of blue fence paint on her wing from her attempts at helping Bob to paint the raised beds, is a lovely roan colour. She has bags of personality (or is that chickenality) and we adore her. However she is a wayward hen at the best of times.
Henrietta and Beatrice both have a taste for cat food. The moment they spot an opening they are in through the back door and chomping their way through whatever variety the cats have turned up their noses at. I've no doubt you share my horror at the practice of turning animals past their prime into protein pellets for their progeny. It was responsible in large part for BSE. Bovines are grass eaters. Pulping them up and feeding them to the next generation was always going to cause trouble-allegedly cannibals (human cannibals) that eat a great deal of same species flesh develop the shakes and terrible nervous system problems. If you look at the ingredient list for virtually any brand of cat food you will see chicken listed amongst the few meat ingredients. Now, to be fair, the avarage high street brand only contains 4% meat so there's little danger of the girls showing signs of dementia in the near future however the thought of them eating their sisters fills me with horror. Not so the chickens.
The single mindedness with which they apply themselves to breaking into the house or out of the garden is awe inspiring. People keep telling me how thick chickens are but if they aren't so clever they sure have native cunning. In the morning, when you go to let them out of the run, if you don't close the back door behind you the first hen is in the cat food before the last one has made it out of the hen house door. This is becoming true of their ability to escape the compound we call our garden.
It's not actually Colditz but it is not the lush green garden it has been in the past. There is barely a blade of grass left. Plants are ripped from the soil as soon as they raise their spring heads and the hedge is gradually being denuded too. In view of this it is hardly surprising that the hens feel the urge to forage for greener surroundings. I doubt there is so much as a snails egg left to chomp on. The same is not true of neighbouring plots.Yet.
On Wednesday last week I was quietly reading when I heard Bob yell up to boy number one "Er, could you pop out the front a moment? I need a hand." I didn't hear what transpired but a few hours later I was treated to the tale of Henrietta's first taste of freedom. Evidently she'd got over the wall, had a dash around and then headed out to the side road for a look. Thankfully Bob was just walking down to the allotment when he spotted her. He tried to get his hands on her but she was having none of it. Evidently having chased her back and forth between two front gardens he finally gave in and called Joel to help. Between the two of them she was corralled and returned to secure accommodation.
I clipped her wings. She wasn't pleased, it wasn't fun for either of us. Having researched wing clipping I chose the kinder alternative of clipping only a part of each wing which meant she wouldn't be off balance and could still bimble about chicken fashion without too much interference. The following day I let the girls out for a run. Someone on the skills exchange came to pick up a keyboard and in the 10 minutes my attention was not on the rear garden she vanished. Vamoosed. Disappeared. No Henrietta.
I peered in both the next door gardens. No chicken. So I walked round the back into the private road that backs onto our rear fence. No Chicken. However there were the tell tale signs that someone with claws had been scratching around the neat border of primulas and miniature daffodils our neighbours so carefully tend. No. Chicken. I knocked on the door of the bungalow which was answered by an elderly gentleman who looked like the guy in that painting American Gothic. I asked "Have you seen a chicken around here recently?" "yes I have. Must be the third time this week. It's ruined the garden." "Did you see where it went?" "No, and I don't care. What about my garden" "I'm sorry, I have to find the hen first but when I do I'll come back and sort out your borders" "Just see that you do"
Copyright the Chicago Art Institute.
By now I was absolutely beside myself. I was also limping a bit after straining an ankle running for the bus the day before. So I limped around the local streets asking those I saw "Have you seen a chicken?" I can only hypothesise from the looks and sniggers that the good burgers of West Bridgford thought I had been taking my chicken for a walk and it had given me the slip. I suppose it is unusual to be asked whether you have spotted a missing chicken. Perhaps given the surreal nature of the inquiry it was not such a leap of imagination to weird women with a hen on a lead.
I retraced my steps and thought I would try a little Sherlock style deduction. Looking at the neighbours destroyed flower bed I realised that there was a pattern of debris about the place that could only have been scraped up by the claws of a large avian. Knowing ostriches to be in short supply I moved around the clutch of bungalows and noted other tell tale signs and then heard a friendly chicken gurgle. A few moments later a tired but happy Henrietta allowed me to pick her up virtually without complaint. I returned her to the run with her sisters where she happily busied herself with the feed hopper.
I returned to our neighbour, swept up his path and replanted the primulas that had been dislodged. In general she hadn't done too much damage but I apologised and offered pay war reparations. Subsequently we have had to lock her in the run for most of the day because after a further two escapades it became clear that our neighbours are not of the friendly forgiving kind and, understandably, do not take kindly to a chicken in the herbaceous border. I have now saved up enough eggs to take round as a peace offering but I suspect it is going to take a bit more than a box of the lovely girls' efforts to draw a smile from the poor man.
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