A Girl and Her Chicken or A Boy and His Cricket: A Tragedy

I believe I have mentioned before that we have a mentally handicapped chicken. I should explain. It's a Rhode Island Red and her name is Baby. She is a bit of an odd duck (or chicken, I suppose). While our other four chickens can generally be found together, scratching around for food, Baby does her own thing. She might be on the other side of the yard in the bushes. But she's survived thus far. The four other chickens sleep in a pile on the top tier of the hen house, but Baby can be found a level below, happy as can be. You can come at the chickens on the riding lawnmower and they'll all scatter and look for cover except for Baby. She'll just watch and make you swerve.

She's been very slow to develop. She's smaller than the other hens, and her comb has come in very slowly. I'm still not convinced that she's laying, although we did get 5 eggs once or twice last week. Generally speaking, the chickens scatter when you approach them. Unless you're carrying their food scooper, or have painted toenails for them to peck, or your name happens to be Michelle. If any of those apply they will come at you in a threatening mob, snapping their fingers (claws?), and singing about Sharks and Jets. It's terrifying. Baby is different, though. She's too dumb to run away, so she just stands there. 

Enter Bryn. She has tender feelings in her heart for chickens in general, but the most special, golden, pristine portion of her heart is a place with room for only Baby. She LOVES that chicken. She pushes her in the stroller. She carries her around. She is delighted to let the chickens out every day so she can "play" with Baby.

We usually let the hens out to range around four in the afternoon, and when it starts to get cold and dark they'll climb back into the coop, comfy and warm and safe. Then before Nate and I go to bed, he goes out to kiss all their little heads, sing them a lullaby, and lock the coop.

One night Nate went out to lock up the chicken coop and realized that the door had been closed, so the chickens hadn't been able to get back in when it got dark. We got our headlamps out and went searching and found them huddled in a glob next to the coop, fast asleep. Nate picked each one up and tucked it inside the coop and then realized that one was missing. It was, you guessed it, Baby. We looked everywhere, we called, we poked around in bushes and tall grass, but alas, no Baby. We tried not to think about all the dogs and skunks and raccoons that might just happen upon the sleeping runt in the night. I shed a few tears thinking of how we would have to break the news to the kids the next day. Our prayers were especially fervent that night, and our sleep was not the best. First thing in the morning, Nate shot outside to the yard and found our mentally handicapped chicken pecking around in the garden, happy as a clam and oblivious to the grief and anxiety she'd caused us.

Switching gears here, yesterday I was sweeping the floor and found a cricket that had penetrated the impenetrable bug spray barrier around our house. He wasn't doing too hot. I should've just dumped him in the trash with the rest of the rubble, but my dad's voice came to my mind saying, "it's bad luck to kill a cricket." So I called Addison and asked him to take it outside and find a nice home for it. Next thing I know, he had a pet. Named Crickety. He didn't even seem to notice that Crickety only had one back leg. (Side note: My brother Russell once had a pet cricket with a bum leg named Crickety). The fresh air seemed to revive Crickety considerably and Addison was having a great time with him. We looked up what crickets eat and Addison made a nice little home for Crickety in a five gallon bucket with plenty of plants to eat, a little sandbox shovel filled with water and a roley poley. I sent the kids out with some old grapes to feed to the chickens and Addison made sure to give Crickety the hookup too.

First thing this morning, Addison ran outside to check on his pet. Crickety was alive and thriving and Addison was thrilled. After we got ready for the day he ran outside to play with his cricket who had somehow lost the other back leg as well. Bryn went too, but Addison wasn't really in a sharing mood, so he explained that Crickety was his pet, and Baby was Bryn's. So Bryn ran over and let the chickens out.

I ran inside to put Leah down for a nap and returned to find a crying, inconsolable Bryn. She ran up to me and showed me where Baby had bitten her on the lip and sobbed as though her heart would break, "I thought Baby was my pet!" Then I turn around and Addison was bawling too. He'd had Crickety in his little bug-catcher and was making his way over to tell Baby off for biting Bryn when he dropped the cricket. And couldn't find it. Ever agan. And between the two of them my heart broke a little and I had to stifle a chuckle at the same time. Life can be cruel sometimes.

Things were pretty rough around our house for the next hour or so. But luckily Uncle Russell was available to tell Addison over the phone about his own Crickety experience, in which Crickety had gone home to see his family. And also luckily, we had macaroni and cheese for lunch, so all became right in the world. And we all came out of it a little sadder but wiser.