Mama said project, number two

Chicken love

When I was eight years old my parents and I and my brother moved to a five acre “farm” in the country near my father’s hometown, closer to aunts, uncles and cousins.  My parents had evidently read a book called “Five Acres and Independence” and were inspired to give this country lifestyle a try. 

In addition to their jobs (mom as a teacher, dad as a carpenter) they raised chickens in the two chicken coops that came with the property.

I don’t know if the term ‘free range’ had even been minted at that time, but for some reason my mother decided that, in addition to the 1200 chickens getting plump and ready to go to market in the coops, we should have some Banty (more correctly Bantam) hens running free in our yard.  I think maybe someone gave them to her.  How ever it came about, one spring we were the proud owners of five banty hens and one tiny but very cocky rooster.

Sometimes we were able to find eggs still fresh enough to eat but not too often.  Banty hens, like most chickens, were not great flyers, so we were surprised when one of the hens managed to lay six eggs five feet up in the crotch of a catalpa tree in our front yard.  I think Mom (always the teacher) decide this would be a good learning experience for us, so she let the mama hen hatch those chicks.  Then we started wondering how on earth she was going to get them out of the nest and down on the ground.  Chickens, at any age, are not great flyers. 

We watched and waited and were lucky enough to see the grand event.  About the time their fluff was turning to feathers Mama Hen literally kicked her chicks out of the nest.  Each one hit the grass with a bounce, then jumped up and scampered off, ready to find their own way and their own food in the big wide world.

And the moral of this story is that sometimes our chicks won’t prosper until we are willing to let them go.