Everything I had as a child, I have replicated in my current life. My grandmother and my spinster aunt were always with us during school holidays, and, having nothing else to entertain them, they raised birds and fishes for company. They had those lovely parakeets who cooed ever so gently; the canaries that always burst into a song; the lovebirds that seemed wrapped up in themselves. The fish were always gold fishes.
Now that I am the same age as my aunt, I find myself surrounded by birds and fishes. I have parakeets, love birds, parrots, and fishes.
But I have gone one step further: I have chickens! A former classmate gifted me with Chinese bantam chickens. They are so beautiful! He gave me three hens and one rooster.
Initially, I put them in my Farm so they could multiply. Then I found out that the hens didn’t like to lay on their eggs. So, I went back to my friend: what do you when they don’t like to lay on their eggs? He quickly answered: You can have fresh eggs daily to eat!
That was such a good idea, I decided to bring back a pair of the chickens. Well, they had multiplied, and their eggs were hatched by other feathered friends in the Farm. So their breed was sure to continue.
It was such fun to eat fresh eggs daily. They looked so yellow, and runny, much to my taste! Every day, it was in my routine to go to the nest and get the egg that was just deposited there!
One day, I noticed that the rooster was giving my hen a hard time. He was chasing after her, and she was running away! When I went to buy birdseed for my smaller birds, the Seller told me that I had to get more hens to satisfy his sexual urges! He said that the rooster would want to have sex almost eight times a day!!!
So I went to the Farm to get one more hen. That helped my Rooster a bit as far as his temper over not having enough hens for sex. Now I needed two nests for each hen. Great, I thought! More eggs for me to eat.
Pretty soon, the other hen started to lay eggs. But there was one thing different about her. She didn’t want to get up from the nest. She was actually going to sit on the nest and not give up her egg to me to eat. I was confused. This was a breed that never sat on their eggs. Then, I was informed that this was the hybrid hen, where her father was a local rooster, and their breed laid on the eggs.
Today, there was a skirmish, not between the two hens, but between my Maid, myself, and the three chickens, including the Rooster. The First Hen who didn’t want to lay on her eggs, wanted to have her nest back. The Second Hen had been laying her eggs on the First Hen’s nest for two weeks now, and she wasn’t going to give up her nest that now had six of her own eggs! The Maid and I decided to force the First Hen to use the other nest. We moved the nest to another place, and locked the Second Hen away from the new nest. The Maid took the First Hen who clucked wildly to the new location of the nest that she didn’t want to use. Superhero Rooster heard the First Hen and bit the Maid. I then shooed the Rooster away from the Maid, who was holding the First Hen.
Finally, we tied the legs of the First Hen to the place where the new location of the nest. She plopped out the egg that was dying to get out, on the nest, and she sat on it for a while. She was quiet.
We gave her a few minutes. Then we opened the new breeding place and she went off to be with Superhero Rooster.
The Maid asked me, “Are you going to have fresh eggs daily once again?” I had forgotten about that!
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