Feathered Friend

Chickens are like feathery dogs. When they know you have snacks, they’ll follow you around, and they need a certain amount of attention, or they get a little sad. Admittedly, I don’t reckon there’ll be mountain rescue chickens any time soon, and the idea of a guide chicken for the blind sounds frankly terrifying. But in all kinds of ‘pet me,’ ‘chat to me,’ ‘feed me please,’ manner, they are dogs.

And just like dogs, they have their own distinct personalities: Genghis likes to be acknowledged as the king of the roost but gets very hurt feelings if ignored. Vera plays piano. Veronica likes investigating. Nuggets expects respect, and Nikita, our disabled rooster (yes, there can be such a thing), is all about positivity and relentlessness in the face of adversity.

We hatched him from an egg. Literally. He was stuck in an egg, chirping desperately, unable to get out, and Mark peeled the shell away to free him. He was quite a sorry wee state to begin with, and if it hadn't been for his chirping, we didn't think he'd make it. But he did.

This happened around the time I broke my wrist earlier this year, so we were too distracted to notice Nikita had splay leg - a condition that makes a chicken’s legs splay out to the side. It can be fixed up to around 48 hours after hatching, but beyond that, there’s no chance. We noticed on day three.

Chickens with splay leg generally die, but not Nikita. Though he had one leg that stuck out to the side like he was giving directions, he hopped about on his one good leg, and grew, becoming the most bizarre and yet brilliant rooster, with the shiniest copper feathers and the sunniest disposition.

The chickens are so part of all things here at Tweddley Manor, that sometimes I forget not everybody has them. I remember, though, when Ferg takes photos of them doing daft stuff, to send to his girlfriend who lives back East. Or Lachlan will bring home a friend from school to meet our flock of feathery reprobates.

And that's what happened this week.

I was sitting in the living room enjoying the afternoon sun, when Lachlan and his friend Ryan appeared. They're in senior year and so we talked about college and fashion and school stuff. When Lachlan said he was taking Ryan out to meet the chickens, I smiled, wondering how much posturing Genghis would do for his new visitor.

Lachlan returned, ashen-faced, a couple of minutes later, and uttered a sentence nobody ever particularly wants to hear.

“ Mom, one of the chickens has been decapitated.”

I followed him back out into the yard. It was remarkably quiet. Normally, there are chickens pottering around, and birds chirping in the trees, but nothing.

In a clearing just in front of Cluckingham Palace, Nikita’s body lay lifeless in a mess of blood and feathers. A hawk attack. There was no mistaking it: The silence of the birds. The viciousness and quiet efficiency of the attack.

Genghis has fought off a couple of hawks in his time. But Nikita, with his one useless leg, would have been powerless in a fight. Yet fight he did. His one wee roostmate Ophelia was hiding in the back of the coop. His last act, so typically Nikita, was protecting his wee best pal.

I was horrified. Lachlan was too. And his friend Ryan, who had come round to see Lachlan’s wee feathery friends, will probably be put off chicken raising for life. But we did what needed to be done.

Since then I’ve felt unreasonably sad. We all have. Ferg and I, who were both at home when the hawk attack must have happened, have been stuck in that cycle of ‘Why didn’t we hear anything? Is there something we could have done? Maybe if we’d paid attention.’

Mark, who has to deal with the job of sick chickens, was more practical. “He was an amazing rooster, but he was vulnerable. I’m really surprised he made it so long.”

And I get it. The hawk was doing what hawks do. It was nothing personal. It’s the circle of life and all that.

But I cannot relate the picture I have in my head of the rigid claws and the mass of blood and feathers with my big daft pal, who would hop about the backyard. The guy who would spend ages to find the absolutely perfect position to crow in, only to lose balance midway through and fall over with a cock a doodle doh.

So I keep thinking if only I’d gone out earlier maybe. Or maybe when I heard the crows going crazy, or even the unusual silence, I should have known. But I am King Canute, trying to hold back the ocean. It's pointless, truly pointless. Because Nature always wins.

Since the hawk killed Nikita, the chickens have been almost silent - apart from Big Senga, who is frankly a bit of a sociopath. Knowing there's the risk of hawk attack, Genghis does his best to keep all the chickens together in a group close to where they can find shelter if need be. Though Ophelia, Nikita's roost mate, wanders around in circles where Nikita was when he died, and Big Senga tends to wander off just to really annoy everybody.

And we all feel someone is missing.

Nikita was such a personality. A big feathery daft galoot.

I know of people who can't have another animal once their animal died. My dog growing up was run over. My Dad, after carrying his lifeless body home, refused to ever have another dog in the house. I understand it. It hurts.

But sitting in the dark in the middle of the night, crying over the demise of a disabled rooster, you have to question your sanity. Or do you? It is a loss. Even when that loss is not human.

Because whatever spirit once inhabited Nikita's copper-feathered body has gone and will never return. Life in all its forms is precious. Irreplaceable.

I know the fashion for our current flock of ketamine fueled billionaires is to proclaim that any feeling other than the drive to make money is weakness. But I’d rather be a fully grown woman unable to explain my sorrow over the loss of a chicken, than a fully grown man aiming to justify why killing survivors from shipwrecks is just fine.

Nature always gets her way in the end. When the moment comes and whatever I am leaves this body, I want to be ok with the time I spent here.

So Nikita has gone. There will be no pomp or ceremony. No flying of flags at half mast. The world will not mourn our disabled rooster, who used to fall over when he crowed.

So I thought I'd write a Note. About a one-legged chicken. About love and compassion and friendship and community. About how courage is defined by fighting your own challenges, not by finding ways to destroy someone else. And about how feeling is not weakness, but the key to all that is life.

And that for all of their crowing about money and their private planes and private islands and their golden fucking elevators, those creatures of proclaiming their ultimate power mean less to me than a disabled rooster.

And they always fucking will.

XO

PS: If you click on the heart emoji to like this post, I’ll mention it to Big Sebga, who wont give a shit probably, because she’s a bit of a sociopath. Still, it won’t half do wonders for my algorithm.

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Feathered Friend - Audio