The Story of Red

The Story of Red

It started, about 3 months ago, with a conversation I had with my friends N. and A. It wasn’t the first time we had had this conversation. It started, as it usually did, with A’s turkeys. He is very, very proud of them. All 14 or so, including a huge and magnificent male named “Charlie.” I mentioned how it would be cool to have a chicken. A hen, to lay eggs for me, and to cluck around my doorstep. It’d be kind of like being the farmer’s wife I have always felt an affinity for. Both of my friends pointed out that there would be an animal market in three days time. I declined to attend, telling them I needed to think my chicken aspirations over more carefully. Usually, this was the end of the conversation. This time, though, A. made a threat: “If you don’t buy that chicken, I am buying one for you!” I thought he was joking.

Three days later, I received a text: “You have a feathered friend coming ur way on the rainbow nukl! Be there to pick her up!” I still thought he was joking, so I texted back asking for 3m of chicken wire as well. He cheerfully said he had made the purchase and all was now on our way. I realized he might not be joking. At 4 o’clock, when I was having a meeting with the women’s association, my friend’s son Yussef comes up to my door, carrying a box and a roll of chicken wire. I am shocked. This is really happening. I go get my chicken, peek in at her, and set her down. She is still in the box. I do not know what to do with her. I go up to my women and beg for their help. The come downstairs into the barn part of the house, look around, and immediately set to work setting up a chicken coop for me. Only they call it a “chicken house.” I am assigned the task of making a water dish for her by cutting the bottom of a plastic jug. I do this without cutting myself, and proudly bring it down to find… a rather well set up wire fence, with bamboo pole and rocks holding the bottom down, and a largish red-brown hen looking rather ruffled and disoriented standing inside it. I give her water. She starts gulping it down. We give her corn and barley bits. She enthusiastically eats them. We finish our meeting. The women leave.
I have a chicken.

Days pass and Red (the name I eventually settled on) get used to each other. I give her crushed barley, bread bits, and veggie scraps. She attempts to escape twice and gives it up as a bad job. She picks a roosting spot on some large branches in the chicken house. I was a little disappointed, I thought she would want a nest, which I had made for her out of straw.

Weeks go by, and she seems settled. But she isn’t laying eggs! A. and N. both told me she was supposed to be a great layer. I ask my host mother, who suggests letting her outside. It’s been a while, and so I do. That is, I tie a string to her leg, and the other end to my leg, and take her for a walk. She hates it! Spends 80% of her time just tugging on the string, 10% looking around worriedly, and only 10% eating like I want her to. She is courted by a handsome blonde rooster, but she runs away. After two days of a stressed out chicken tied to my leg, I’m done with this strategy. Besides, the villagers are giving me really funny looks, and my sitemate is outright laughing at me. So I let her go. And wonder of wonders, she doesn’t run away! She instead proves to me she likes her chicken house by trying to get back into it quickly. So, I start letting her out every day.

The blonde rooster came back. And a black rooster showed up. I’ll call him Torpedo. The blondie I’ll call Mr. Rooster. Torpedo has a one track mind. He saw my hen, happily eating dandelion leaves like they’re going out of style, and thought: “Perfect, I’m gettin’ lucky today!” And he dive-bombed her. No, seriously! I saw motion out of the corner my eye, heard a squawking sound, and there was my chicken pinned to the ground by the amorous Torpedo. Business taken care of, he runs off. Presumably in search of other innocent hens. Red looks a little traumatized, so I let her go back inside. The next day I watched the much more courtly Mr. Rooster attempt to convince Red to join his harem of hens. It works, and I have to go retrieve her.

Two or three weeks after all this, it happens. I walk downstairs to the bathroom early one morning, and there it is. A small, cream-brown egg lying in the corner of Red’s house. I am so excited! I have an egg! For free! Well, not free, but it just appeared there!! From that time on, Red laid an egg every other day for weeks. I was lovin’ it!

I came back from a trip to find Red sitting in the corner where she usually lays eggs. She looks all flat. Like she’s trying to spread herself out. I give her food and she doesn’t move. Now I’m a little concerned, because she is usually all about food. (Like chicken like owner?) So I climb into her house and poke at her. She burbles warily at me. I have never heard her make that noise. I pick her up and try to put her on her feet. She plumps back down as though drawn by magnetic force. I decide to leave her be.

She’s still there the next morning, but the food is gone. So, at least she’s eating. I decide to put her outside. She rouses herself to this; cleans her feathers, cleans her beak, and starts pecking at the ground. This is good! But after only 5 minutes she is back inside trying to get back in the cage. I put her back in and she settles herself down on her little nest in the corner… and I have a realization. She looks just like a robin on her nest. All fluffed up and smushed flat and with a look her eye that says, “Stay back, buster!” I have a new theory: she’s feeling broody. Cool.

Well, sort of. No more eggs, for one. And she’s not brooding anything but rocks. I figure she’ll get over her broody feeling fairly soon.

She doesn’t. Three weeks go by and she is still sitting there. I tell my host mother about this, and she tells me that she wants to give my chicken some eggs. You know, to sit on. Will she take them? I want to know. My host mother seems to think so, so I give her the go ahead. I come downstairs to find my host mother in my barn (she has keys to the outer part of my house), and my chicken with the fanciest nest I’ve ever seen. Three feet wide and approaching a foot deep of straw, I can barely see her in it. She looks very content. I go and lift her up, she’s got about 14 eggs under her, all warm. I poke some stragglers back towards the middle and put her back down. She burbles happily. I bet she will be a great mother. I wish I could get to see the chicks hatch!! I think I want to have chickens again.