By all the gods and cthonic entities, I love my chickens.
Last night, I had to get up not long after my pet hen settled down next to me. I hear her trilling, and then bok-boking as I leave the room. This is with my wife and kid still there. The whole decade I was gone, she was standing on the arm of the couch, watching the doorway, craning her head around and making her little-lost-chicken sounds.
I finally come back after eternity, she stretches her little neck out, flaps her wings and dances a little.
I forgot to grab her a little treat, so I turn around and go back into the kitchen and hear buuuuuuk and feet stamping. Because I came back and just left again. I come back with a cashew and some bread, and after she savages that, she leans up against me, flips her tail, and goes to sleep.
But today? Holy pollo!
I arise from my slumber and head to the reading room for some contemplation on matters digestive. While in there, I hear my kid going out back, then coming back with the boka-boka-boks of a put-upon rooster.
Those sounds fade and they move to the living room. Big boy is not an indoor bird because, unlike baby girl, he does not recognize pads as the appropriate poop place. But he comes in for visits, and is very often hilarious. Sliding around on the linoleum, running around to visit each room, bawking at the things he’s seen dozens of times but forgotten because a rooster brain can only hold so much information before it gets shunted out in the form of poop.
Ahhh, but today, he hears me coming through the house and starts gobbling and bawking (as opposed to a bok, buk, tok, or bu-kawk, they really are all different) loudly.
I turn the corner into the living room, and my kid is holding him. He starts running in the air, his giant little feet just pumping, his neck stretched out towards me, and lets out an ear splitting BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRR. We call that his angry teakettle. It isn’t a sign of actual anger, the sound for that is slightly different, but it is a powerful scream nonetheless.
My kid stands up with him, and he is frantically scrabbling at the air as he is carried towards me and I walk to him.
We reach each other and he burbles. His wings fold back in, and he stretches his neck out and down. I start petting him, right at the base of the neck down between his wings and begin talking sweet to him. Like a switch, he purrs for a bit, then starts melting. I put one hand under his chest while my kid shifts their grip so he doesn’t fall. That’s because he absolutely will slide out of your arms when he’s grooving on pets and scritches like that.
I’m petting him, he’s purring and giving the occasional buk or bok while I talk to him, tell him he’s such a sweet rooster, my favorite rooster, and that he’s just a big, wonderful boy.
After a minute or so, I pull back because I need to shift my balance since I wasn’t positioned well and my back was starting to spasm. He pops open his eyes, stretches towards me with this buuuuuuk of longing. Now, attributing human emotions like longing onto an animal is rarely appropriate. But in this case, the way he was reaching for me, combined with the sigh of satisfaction when I started petting him again, I can’t think of any better way to describe it.
As I was writing that paragraph, my wife had gone to toss some scraps for the birds. Big boy stomped his self right in the door, up the ramp, and into the house. He stopped, let out a nigh window rattling baaaaaawwwwwk! And began stamping back and forth.
So my kid picks him up and starts to take him back out. Bad move. They caught a peck and a wing beating for that. Until they turned around and started coming this direction. That’s when he settled back and gave his approval via contented books. Which, again, is different from bok,buk,bawk, or other variations. I’m not even joking, there’s a dozen or so distinct vocalizations that roughly sound like the bawk or buck that people think chickens sound like.
In any case, I’m stretched out, waiting for my back to stop spasming, and as soon as they round the corner and he sees me, the excited teakettle starts screaming, his legs are pumping furiously, and my kid (being a professional chicken chauffeur) brings him to me.
Whereupon, he starts clucking contentedly while getting his pets. He got his fill and lightly pecked the kid until he was driven back outside
But, back to what I was almost ready to finish with.
Earlier, after second pets, he had also reached his desired level of interaction and played teenager jockey back outside.
Meanwhile, my wife starts crying because she remembered how scared he used to be of everything, barely willing to be near any of us, how long it took to get him to take treats from us, how long it took for him to not run off if we came close. And now, he gets excited to see us, and gets super excited when he sees me. He’s happy, or as happy as a fury driven agent of mayhem gets. He is a murderbird after all. Just ask the poor critters that have tried to take him on and been killed, or fled in terror at his wrath.
But he’s my friend, and I’m his. And that feels so fucking good. This rooster, he wasn’t hand raised, he had been neglected, seen part of the flock he hatched with get eaten, been passed around and unsure of what was going on in his life. We got him in summer of 23, not quite two years ago. It took pretty much the entire first year to get him to the point he wasn’t scared/angry when we’d pick him up to check his feet.
Now, he comes running to us. Sometimes, he’ll come running and jump into arms, or onto laps. Not for treats, either, though there was a phase in there where he’d come running and start looking for treats and not caring about us otherwise. But me and him had a breakthrough this past winter, where I’d wrap him up at bedtime and get him settled in when it was drizzly. He’d get dry, and warm, and eventually would just sit there instead of jumping off.
And that’s when I started petting him. It was weird to him at first, but he was warm and drowsy, so he put up with it. He put up with it long enough that he seemed to realize it felt good, and he started coming to me when he’d see me grab a towel. That turned into an almost daily thing. Even when the weather started warming, he still wanted a little petting at bedtime, even if he wasn’t sleeping inside (well, on the porch).
From all of that, to this goofy, dumb, but glorious beast that seems to love us. Makes me cry happy tears sometimes because it’s just so nice to see him have space to enjoy life instead of always being on swivel.
By all the gods and cthonic entities, I love my chickens.
Last night, I had to get up not long after my pet hen settled down next to me. I hear her trilling, and then bok-boking as I leave the room. This is with my wife and kid still there. The whole decade I was gone, she was standing on the arm of the couch, watching the doorway, craning her head around and making her little-lost-chicken sounds.
I finally come back after eternity, she stretches her little neck out, flaps her wings and dances a little.
I forgot to grab her a little treat, so I turn around and go back into the kitchen and hear buuuuuuk and feet stamping. Because I came back and just left again. I come back with a cashew and some bread, and after she savages that, she leans up against me, flips her tail, and goes to sleep.
But today? Holy pollo!
I arise from my slumber and head to the reading room for some contemplation on matters digestive. While in there, I hear my kid going out back, then coming back with the boka-boka-boks of a put-upon rooster.
Those sounds fade and they move to the living room. Big boy is not an indoor bird because, unlike baby girl, he does not recognize pads as the appropriate poop place. But he comes in for visits, and is very often hilarious. Sliding around on the linoleum, running around to visit each room, bawking at the things he’s seen dozens of times but forgotten because a rooster brain can only hold so much information before it gets shunted out in the form of poop.
Ahhh, but today, he hears me coming through the house and starts gobbling and bawking (as opposed to a bok, buk, tok, or bu-kawk, they really are all different) loudly.
I turn the corner into the living room, and my kid is holding him. He starts running in the air, his giant little feet just pumping, his neck stretched out towards me, and lets out an ear splitting BRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRR. We call that his angry teakettle. It isn’t a sign of actual anger, the sound for that is slightly different, but it is a powerful scream nonetheless.
My kid stands up with him, and he is frantically scrabbling at the air as he is carried towards me and I walk to him.
We reach each other and he burbles. His wings fold back in, and he stretches his neck out and down. I start petting him, right at the base of the neck down between his wings and begin talking sweet to him. Like a switch, he purrs for a bit, then starts melting. I put one hand under his chest while my kid shifts their grip so he doesn’t fall. That’s because he absolutely will slide out of your arms when he’s grooving on pets and scritches like that.
I’m petting him, he’s purring and giving the occasional buk or bok while I talk to him, tell him he’s such a sweet rooster, my favorite rooster, and that he’s just a big, wonderful boy.
After a minute or so, I pull back because I need to shift my balance since I wasn’t positioned well and my back was starting to spasm. He pops open his eyes, stretches towards me with this buuuuuuk of longing. Now, attributing human emotions like longing onto an animal is rarely appropriate. But in this case, the way he was reaching for me, combined with the sigh of satisfaction when I started petting him again, I can’t think of any better way to describe it.
As I was writing that paragraph, my wife had gone to toss some scraps for the birds. Big boy stomped his self right in the door, up the ramp, and into the house. He stopped, let out a nigh window rattling baaaaaawwwwwk! And began stamping back and forth.
So my kid picks him up and starts to take him back out. Bad move. They caught a peck and a wing beating for that. Until they turned around and started coming this direction. That’s when he settled back and gave his approval via contented books. Which, again, is different from bok,buk,bawk, or other variations. I’m not even joking, there’s a dozen or so distinct vocalizations that roughly sound like the bawk or buck that people think chickens sound like.
In any case, I’m stretched out, waiting for my back to stop spasming, and as soon as they round the corner and he sees me, the excited teakettle starts screaming, his legs are pumping furiously, and my kid (being a professional chicken chauffeur) brings him to me.
Whereupon, he starts clucking contentedly while getting his pets. He got his fill and lightly pecked the kid until he was driven back outside
But, back to what I was almost ready to finish with.
Earlier, after second pets, he had also reached his desired level of interaction and played teenager jockey back outside.
Meanwhile, my wife starts crying because she remembered how scared he used to be of everything, barely willing to be near any of us, how long it took to get him to take treats from us, how long it took for him to not run off if we came close. And now, he gets excited to see us, and gets super excited when he sees me. He’s happy, or as happy as a fury driven agent of mayhem gets. He is a murderbird after all. Just ask the poor critters that have tried to take him on and been killed, or fled in terror at his wrath.
But he’s my friend, and I’m his. And that feels so fucking good. This rooster, he wasn’t hand raised, he had been neglected, seen part of the flock he hatched with get eaten, been passed around and unsure of what was going on in his life. We got him in summer of 23, not quite two years ago. It took pretty much the entire first year to get him to the point he wasn’t scared/angry when we’d pick him up to check his feet.
Now, he comes running to us. Sometimes, he’ll come running and jump into arms, or onto laps. Not for treats, either, though there was a phase in there where he’d come running and start looking for treats and not caring about us otherwise. But me and him had a breakthrough this past winter, where I’d wrap him up at bedtime and get him settled in when it was drizzly. He’d get dry, and warm, and eventually would just sit there instead of jumping off.
And that’s when I started petting him. It was weird to him at first, but he was warm and drowsy, so he put up with it. He put up with it long enough that he seemed to realize it felt good, and he started coming to me when he’d see me grab a towel. That turned into an almost daily thing. Even when the weather started warming, he still wanted a little petting at bedtime, even if he wasn’t sleeping inside (well, on the porch).
From all of that, to this goofy, dumb, but glorious beast that seems to love us. Makes me cry happy tears sometimes because it’s just so nice to see him have space to enjoy life instead of always being on swivel.