My Chickens, etc
My Chickens, etc
I have these four chickens quite a while now. I like them as if they were always
in my life, and they recognize and follow me as if they had always belonged to
me. Every time when they saw or heard me walk into the conservatory, they would
run towards me and scamper along the other side of the fence, attempting to reach whatever food I brought to them.
As far as I can remember I had quite a few memories related to chickens. In my parents’ countryside house we used to keep chickens. As we couldn’t afford meat
very often, my mother used to cook eggs laid by our own chickens to enrich our
diet at a regular basis. Then if there were any guest coming to visit us, my father would grab a rooster from the chicken house to feast the guest. We kids all
longed for days like this. Not only could we get presents from the guest, our stomachs could have some as well.
At that time I didn’t have much affection towards the chickens. Because my parents let the chickens run wide around the village in the daytime, in the twilight
we, after finishing school, had to look around for them. It was supposed to be
fun rambling in the village, but not after it became a routine. Then there was the stinky aspect of it. In summer we three children had to clean the chicken houses in turn. The procedure was: First you had to go and pump lots of water into
the barrel; second you poured the water onto the chicken house floor; and then you used a bamboo bloom to try to clean the floor; after that you repeated the process all over again until the floor was clean, and the chickens were happy.
Having said that, there was not without fun to have them in the house. When winter came, I used to chase after the roosters to get some feathers off their tails
, in order to make a shuttlecock. That time my pocket money was scarcely enough
to buy anything. So in order to play I had to improvise. But it didn’t matter
, as the process of making it was fun as well. Though when looking back now, I felt sorry for those roosters I bullied, that time I was only a kid, a kid with too many naughty ideas but too few concerns.
On the other hand, I think I didn’t have much affection towards them partly also due to my parents’ restrictions. They never allowed me to play with or hug them, and always said those chickens had fleas and fleas loved to bite kids.
So my early memory related to chickens was largely the menial part of looking after them and the lousy possibility of having their fleas creep on me.
But of course all this was not true. Raising chickens can be fun and it is actually fun. My chickens and I love the company of one another. Whenever I went to the garden it was them who greeted and followed me all the time. And when I was standing on the grass and doing something, one or two of them would always try to
peck the grass by my feet in order to attract my attention. And when I was eating apple, some of them would try to jump up and have a share of it. They are always hungry, whereas they are ever so faithful. They will take whatever I offer them. For that I feel obliged to give them as unbiased a diet as possible, sort of like what my parents did to us in some way I suppose.
But having said all this I never had the intension to treat them as my pets. I remember there was one day when my friend and I were rambling in the field, we heard someone behind us said “So dear, which way do you want to go?” Upon turning back we found the woman was only but talking to her dog! I don’t want to treat my chickens like that. I want them to live what life they were supposed to live if they were given a choice, and give them attention but not too much as if they were my little pets. And I think this moderate attentiveness can be reflective in the life as well. As it is said, in some way what we do to and how we treat
others, be them animals or people, tell others what’s within us.
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