The chickens don’t need or want much of my time. They fear and despise me and I’m not their biggest fan, so they don’t get much of my time. Nevertheless one of the first lessons living in the boonies will teach you is that the direction you’re not watching is the direction from which trouble will come. So, since I’ve come to depend on the chickens, they get some of my time whether they want it or not.
Sometimes I go into the Fortress of Attitude, take a seat in the open door of the chicken coop, and just spend ten minutes or so hanging out. Sort of learning what passes for normal in the life of a chicken, so that I can recognize abnormal when I see it.
There are three hens in here right now, Rhode Island Reds, and there’s not a lot to choose between them but with only three their individual traits do become apparent. One is bound to be the shyest, the quietest, the one that hangs back from the others even when I come in with good things to eat. And that’s the one I was watching yesterday afternoon, because she had something hanging off one of her toes that looked for all the world like a big hideous tumor of some sort. And she was really favoring that leg.
‘Tis but a lump of chicken shit,’ said I. ‘She’ll shake it off the next time she scratches.’
That one happens to be a really enthusiastic scratcher. It’s what makes the deep compost method work: I spread straw in their yard and they mix it with the dirt and manure a foot thick in places. Especially this moist time of year bugs burrow in there, and uneaten seed sprouts, and they love to dig it all out. Even without being allowed to pasture they’re not costing me much in commercial feed right now.
But now there was this big lump of stuff attached to the chicken’s toe, and she wasn’t scratching very well at all. I waited for her to shake the lump off, and it wasn’t happening. She seemed pretty uncomfortable.
Want to see a flock of chickens go completely apeshit? Go into their enclosure with a fishing net. They seem to react to it instinctively: It’s just got to be a bad thing. But it’s the only way I’ve found for this stiff old man to catch a particular half-wild chicken, even in a confined space. The funny thing about them is that once you’ve finally caught your chicken, it’ll sit real still and let you do whatever you want.
So I caught the shy one and had a look at that thing on her foot, and what it was was a lump of caliche mud the size of two finger-joints that had hardened damn near as hard as rock around her claw. I had an awful time getting it off without the risk of damaging her toe. Finally did, though, then let her out of the net and she ruffled off in high dudgeon without a cluck of thanks.
Guess I’ll have to watch for that until things dry out.
