For those of you that have been reading the enthralling adventures of our chickens you will know that last month we lost two of our girls to a rather nasty tom cat.

So to make ourselves feel better and to get a mate for Clucksy, we had to get a new chicken. We tried a new pet store in Bulleen and were pleasantly surprised by the range of chicks and enormously huge Isa Brown’s available. For the first time we got to pick out the chicken. We chose the one that seemed to be command. Her name is Dusty and she is a Pekin Bantam with little feathers over her feet like little feather dusters (hence the name). WE decided to stop naming the chickens after food in case it encouraged any more cat attacks.

Dusty is the first chicken we’ve bought that came complete with chicken skills. When you bring home a cage reared bird, they seem rather surprised by what free range has to offer and take a while to learn how to scratch and dust bath. Dusty in all of her 10 cm glory immediately jumped out of her box, proceeded to peck and scratch and when Clucksy decided to establish dominance, flew into her face to give her what for. It was like a sparrow attacking an eagle, hilarious.

Dusty is a determined little miss so on the second night when we were trying to put them to bed, she decided she would much prefer to sleep under Clucksy. Now Clucksy isn’t maternal at the best of times but lately she has moved into downright narky. After pecking at Dusty didn’t remove her, Clucksy looked at us as if to say, ‘Do I have to put up with this?”.

Anyway, just when we thought things were getting better, Clucksy had a chicken stroke. At first I thought she had a sore foot because she was having difficulties walking. She kept falling and had to use her wing to steady herself. When I couldn’t find anything wrong with her leg I called the Vet, seeing her fall over when she tried to eat was just too much to bear. The first Vet laughed at me when I asked for an appointment for my chicken but kindly gave me the number for the Bird Specialist in Burwood.

The Bird Specialist was a lot more understanding, apparently we’re not the only ones who bring in our chickens. The Vet thought it was neurological. And much like a person-stroke, Clucksy did make a fairly good recovery over the next few days.

Initially though she was a very unhappy chicken. Dusty took this opportunity to sleep on top of Clucksy and then wiggle underneath her at night since Clucksy wasn’t up to pecking her into place. Even worse our 10 cm chicken started crowing imagining herself to be the top chick.

Anyway, Clucksy is still limping but otherwise seems happy and healthy. Dusty has been relegated to the second rung of the chicken roost. And we have learned a fairly important lesson about not feeding your chickens too many fatty foods.

I didn’t even really understand what had happened as I stood in a garden covered with feathers. Tandi and Parma were gone. Parma was a big chicken and we’d never had any problems with cats before. Then I saw the big grey tom cat on the fence eyeing off Clucksy and flicking its tail. He jumped off the fence when I yelled and jumped straight back up again.

Clucksy is completely dejected, she hasn’t talked to us since, not even to demand treats. She doesn’t even run when she sees the compost bowl which was previously one of her favourite events of the day.

Clucks watched me bury her mates and has stood by their graves ever since.  It just breaks my heart. I know they’re just chickens but they kept us so happy with their little chicken antics and cluckings. 

So I wanted to say goodbye to Tandi, our lovely teenager. Such a little miss, the youngest and bravest of our chickens. Constantly leading the others to new and unexplored territories like down the driveway. For some reason her favourite spot was in the patio planter. The moment my back was turned, in she’d hop and up and down she’d strut.

And Parma, the most beautiful of our chickens. Not so bright, but still Clucky’s best friend. Parma was the most prolific of egg layers, every day without fail. Usually she’d announce the event by loud cackling as if each day surprised by what had popped out of her bottom.

May they both go to a happy place where there is plenty of scratchings and treats. They will be missed.

My favourite chicken, Clucksy, recently underwent ‘the change’. She went from a four egg a week girl, to an every 3 day girl, to a really can’t be bothered but I will sit on the nest anyway because I like to have a nap girl. Whilst she was laying, Clucksy was looking a little threadbare.  Then when she hit menopause she was completely miserable.  She wouldn’t even move for treats which are usually Clucksy’s main purpose in life.  She was so listless that I became concerned that she was ’shell-stuck’.  This is a nasty chicken ailment that is exactly what it sounds like.  My 1940’s chicken book recommended an oiled finger to the vent to remove the offending egg shell. It was singularly the most gruesome thing I have ever done. Strangely Clucksy didn’t seem to mind at all, in fact she seemed quite pleased with the attention.  She even strutted around a little afterwards like she had just got lucky. Turns out she wasn’t shell stuck at all but getting a bit of loving does seem to have helped her turn the corner.

Anway the moral of the story is that although Clucksy was a fairly sad chicken for a week she is now back to her usual treat-pecking ways.  And she has regained her former plumeage.  In fact she has never looked better, glossy, sleek and full of feathers. I can only hope that the very same happens for me, without the feathers though, there’s no cream for that.

The first time we went to Abundant Layers in Macclesfield (the place to shop for chickens for those in the know) was to get Parma, to keep our first chicken, Clucksy, company. We didn’t know the appropriate chicken buying etiquette (we buy our chickens one at a time rather than in bulk).  We went down to the big chicken shed which contains all the breeding chickens (if you get the chance check out the Australorp rooster which is possibly the biggest chicken in the world) and before we knew it we had a chicken in our box and were sent back up the hill.

The first time we went we got lucky and bought a matching Australorp.  We’d found out that Clucksy is a bit of a chicken racist when she was chicken-sat.  When we’d dropped her into a cage full of Isa Brown’s I was really worried that she would be hen pecked by the resident chickens.  So I was somewhat horrified (and secretly quite proud) when she promptly started jumping on top of the locals and pecking them in the head if they approached their food. By the time we left, the Isa Brown’s were huddled in the corner and Clucksy was queen of the roost.  It ended up that she was queen of her own roost when we returned to pick her up.  She had acted so badly that she’d been quarantined.

So when we bought Parma home we were expecting some fireworks. It was a complete fizzer, they got along fine, a little bit of head pecking but nothing requiring seperating them into their own corners.  Which is when we realised that chickens can be a bit colour-ist if you will. Black chicken = friend, brown chicken = chicken demolition derby.

When we headed back to Macclesfield we obviously didn’t realise there was a chicken shortage and were tossing up between another Australorp or one of those pretty white fluffy chickens. I rather fancied myself with a lap chicken or one you could poke into your handbag when you went to a cafe. We only got one choice though.  We could have a 14-week old Isa Brown or an 18-week old Isa Brown.  As for a pretty white fluffy chicken, forget it.  You have to order the eggs in advance (there’s a waiting list) and then raise them yourself.  And I just don’t have the time to be a chicken mother. Since we didn’t need the eggs we went the teenager hoping that she would learn chicken skills from Clucksy at an impressionable age. 

Chicken shopping has a touch of the Christmas present intrigue to it. The chicken man goes into the cage, grabs whatever chicken he can and stuffs it in the box you’ve bought along (FYI it’s bring your own box, free range chcikens do not apply to the back seat). In this way you have less picking opportunities than you do when say you choose a puppy, or a goldfish for that matter.  So it’s fairly exciting to get home and see what you’ve actually got. Just don’t do what my partner did, and open the box in the car, chickens can be spring loaded.

So we got our box-of-chicken home and called the girls over to meet their new best friend and shook the new chicken out.  She was just gorgeous and so very tiny. Parma immediately started chasing her around trying to peck her.  Clucksy wandered around looking for treats.  Both of them started chicken chattering (they do this when they are unsure of something and they have a huge range of vocalisations, by the next day I was fairly sure I could train them to sing opera (and retire on my famous chicken proceeds)).

Anyway, black chickens hung out on one side of the garden, poor little brown chicken tried to fly through the garage window. Not only is she just so young and without chicken life skills but the other chickens are shunning her. They popped themselves to bed that night leaving her to cuddle up in the cold floor in the corner, just like a Cinder-chickerella in the ashes.  I had to pop her onto some straw.

The next day, my two little misses were still acting like Grade-6 girls, pointedly ignoring the new arrival who was trying to hide behind a bush – Australorp ostracism at it’s finest.  I have to say that I am really disappointed with my girls, I thought that I had raised them better than that. I even gave them a stern talking to. They chattered back to me, and from what I remember from Grade-6 it was something along the lines of ‘But she’s different and we don’t want to play with her and she smells and she dresses funny’.

The whole reason that we’d got the third chicken in the first place is that Clucksy has gotten older and has taken to chicken naps in the morning and afternoon. Which leaves Parma by herself which she doesn’t like. Obviously there was a bit of a chicken friend vacuum to fill.

I’m hoping that things don’t continue on like primary school though.  If it does the best friends might have a fight and then one of them will hang with the new girl, leaving the other in the cold. Or they might start gossiping a lot about each other to the third chicken.  It could really get ugly. And if they don’t all learn to get along soon I am going to have to apply that old adage “birds of a feather, stick together” and figure out how to either glue chickens together or dye one of them black.

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.