Katy Klein Has a Chat

There is a lot going on at the moment.  Turns out that unemployment has very little to do with sitting on the couch watching day time TV, and a lot to do with running around like a headless chook and then wondering where the day has gone.  If I am this busy now, how did I manage when I had a full time job as well? Why in this day of time savers are there so many things that need our time?

Anyway, unemployment would be a lot worse if I had a moment to ponder it.  At the start I had a bunch of grand plans about what I would do with my “extra” time, but five weeks later this is my first entrée into a creative life. When you’re working you always think that you might do something a bit creative but you have the excuse that you’ve run out of vim after a day at work. Now I have the time but have to grapple with the fact that I’m possibly not any great competition for Hemingway.

So I just gave the chickens a drumstick bone from lunch.  Clucksy immediately ran off with the bone hanging out of her beak with Parma in hot pursuit.  Chickens seem to be one of your more cannibalistic pets.  Clucksy and Parma  enjoy a whole range of meats and fish but are particular about their fruit and vegie selection (they don’t enjoy avocadeo for instance).  They are fairly spoilt though and prefer any food item that comes with sauce. They’ve taken to begging for treats outside our back door and are fairly insistent about it.  I left the door open one day and the next time I turned around I had two chickens in my kitchen.  Previously they wouldn’t come in since they have issues walking on tiles but lino seems to be just fine for them.

We got Clucksy a little unexpectedly and free-of-charge. One night I took my bins out at my block of units.  On the way back I see a chicken.  If you ever want to make a spectacle in front of your neighbours I highly recommend running around after a squarking chicken. So Clucksy got popped into the backyard en route to an animal shelter.  I came home from work the following day to find mygarden in tatters but with one egg shining in the middle of it all.  So Clucksy moved in and has been hell bent on destruction ever since.

The only problem was that chickens are quite sociable as a whole and Clucksy became a little dependent on human interaction.  The moment she heard my footsteps inside she would start cackling for some company and she wouldn’t stop until I hung out with her.  I figured out that the only way to stop her carrying on was to play music.  Either she really liked music or she didn’t quite understand that music meant I was at home.

Which is why we had to go and get Parma from the chicken shop. Parma was cage reared so was a little slow in her chicken skills.  The first time she saw rain she cackled furiously for two hours straight.  She tried to eat dirt, didn’t understand kitchen scraps were delicious and didn’t know how to roost.  But she can now scratch as well as any other chicken.  Her pecking skills are a lot less accurate and she has a tendency to take out your finger when you feed her.  But her personality has improved no end.

I have to say that chickens are one of your more useful pets, at least you get something in return for all the feed that goes into them. They keep themselves nice, always wiping their beak after a meal and never expect you to throw them a ball endlessly.  The only down side is that they are the natural enemy of your garden patch.