Chickens

I bought 8 chickens on a whim. Asked for an experience in which I had acted rashly, I told the story to a researcher who was studying mood disorders and wanted to see ifi was eligible as a subject. 3 chickens is what you are legally allowed to have in PGH if you have a permit. Although I did not get a permit, and did not ask my landlord, I figured they were a commodity that would trade quickly on craigslist if worst came to worst. I had started building a coop out of pallets I had got from behind home depot. Without drawing anything, this is what formed:

  The chickens from Chicora were a month old. We had 7 months to go, maybe more before they started laying. Three months into it, my upstairs neighbor told my landlord, because he said "the smell was too bad". This was some bullshit. He lived 2 floors away from them, and would not be able to smell them even if they were not having their cage cleaned every 2 days. His dogs crap was in a bin on my front porch, but I didn't say anything because he subtly hinted to me one day that he would call some board or another and that "they would not be happy to find out about it". He then berated my entire idea of chickens, and a garden, as he termed it "the movement". He later apologized, with the undermining stipulation that he had meant every word of his previous diatribe, and so I wish sterility on him and allow this blog to be a forum to express my thoughts on the behaviors of human beings in close quarters, which are often driven my primitive tendencies to instil and maintain a pecking order. What rubric we use to gain and fall is much more complicated than that of the chickens, at least more elaborate, though possibly the same hormones are released in the brain of my neighbor and a chicken. While a person tries to keep up with the jones's, the chickens strove to jump on top of one another. It was interesting to note, that the most dominant chicken died first. Speedy. The runt who took over as biggest dill-hole. He must have expressed his dominance to the Raccoon. I wish my neighbor (it feels improper to use the word, despite close proximity of living), who, thankfully, has moved, would express his dominance to a bus.

He and his friends who don't have the capacity for true compassion, or friendship, told me that I'd better get the chickens into the unfinished coop. They had already told my landlord, and fearing eviction I had already been to work on the coop for two days prior to our showdown. Now with legal repercussions of some mysterious government board, I flew to the coop, working late into the night and moved all 8 of them in.

 A few months in the basement.

for 3 days I worked to provide them water and food, creating a cardboard feed dispenser and a over-turned bucket watering system. While I had acces to the back door to the coop, the chickens needed let in to the front door, which was within their enclosure. A little walkway lead to the door. Their door swung down with hinges above. Every night some of the fence was pulled apart, big enough for an arm to reach, so that the door could me fastened. Very important to get them in before dusk, before the animals come out. Then I went to Washington DC for a long planned trip. Since Anna was busy, I asked Faith, the neighbor who also had a chicken, to lock them up at night. Anna said she would help too. While I was away Anna let me know that animals were messing around with the coop, riling the chicks a few nights in a row and forcing her to go outside. She assured me they were fine. A few days later I called her and she told me they were all dead but one, "Chocobo" the littlest, a brown silky with "fuzzy boots" as the feet were referred to. A Raccoon I suspected was the culprit, since I had seen a big fella wandering around the abandoned houses in the alley. Must have gotten in through the whole used to latch their front hatch. When I got back, raccoon fur not matching any local cats was found on the wire fencing. The day after the first call, another. One chick, Anna told me, was killed in broad daylight, torn right through the 1 sq Inch fencing, resembling fancy processed meat with a feather boa on its way to the Copacabana, or some gay event.
Never got to figure out their sex's. They died, and a week later, So did faith's Chicken. My neighbor Charlie, told me he had a trap, and leant it to me. "Take it as long as you need it" he told me.

TO BE CONTINUED