Thought I’d be writing a chicken obituary here today. But I’m not.
Because life is usually stranger than fiction and because we are living in upside-down times, here’s the next chapter in the sad chicken story I posted two weeks ago.
In that story, Viper, our oldest and bottom-of-the-pecking-order rooster was nearing despondency and death at the hands of two younger, vicious roosters who refused to let him eat or drink or be near any other chickens 24/7. We were desperate to protect him and feed him but we were losing the battle. When last we left, Viper had thrown in the towel. Life was hanging by a thread — and a thin one at that.
When a rooster throws in the towel, he basically presents himself for death. Viper did what I’ve seen many times: he jams himself into a corner presenting only his hind section to defend himself but protecting his face and breast from peck attacks. It’s only a matter time until they finish him off as he starves in that corner, overnight even.
But the very morning after I’d sent in my first column, I came upon him wedged between a giant oak and the master gate. He looked already dead with his tormentors close by at dawn. But as the gate creaked open in the heat and the bad guys gave back to get out of its way, Viper suddenly came alive in one last gasp, bolted through my legs, out the gate and into the tractor bay and invisibility. The gate closed. The two rooster enforcers squawked and snarled and began hopping up and down in the dirt, furious. He was solid gone.
There he stayed under the tractor, not coming out for his feeder or his maker.
So we fed him under the protective machine, sliding in the pellets and a water dish.
He didn’t trust anyone and hunkered down for days. He was one hungry fellow and very thirsty in all this mega heat.
But on the fourth morning, there he was, walking towards me in the dusky haze — as if he was the new Welcome Rooster, like a Walmart greeter. As I passed, he followed me to the front of the grain shed and calmly waited his turn. Had to feed him first — of course — out of mercy and joy. He looked five years younger and so grateful. Free at last! Free at last! He got fed right in front of his tormentors which drove them to new heights of rage. I was roaring with laughter and that sense of moral victory and fairness that raising animals always denies you. “So there,” I brayed at them! “Take that!” They were steaming.
And Viper got better and better. He still lives free and eats and struts in front of the wire that holds them in. Now he has a girlfriend at our other chicken pen who he stands next to all day and makes chicken sounds to through their wire. She coos back. He is no longer lonely or perpetually starving all day. He looks sensational. In fact, the two bad guy enforcer roosters have been attacking each other in pecking order skirmishes throughout the day. Ha! I have no sympathy whatsoever.
This very morning, after coming out to greet me, Viper followed up me the driveway to get the newspaper. It made me laugh and reminded me that when raising animals, few things ever turn out as you envisioned them. Our moral streaks count for nothing in their world, their jungle. Heaven can become hell instantly, and back again, ignoring us completely. Viper is more like a new family dog. Now, if I can only train him to carry down the paper in the morning on his own, maybe he could have it waiting for me.
Gloucester resident Gordon Baird is an actor and musician, co-founder of Musician Magazine and producer of “The Chicken Shack” community access TV show.