Fowl!

2005-10-13T21:45:00.000-05:00

It's been a long day, and a late night. And now, here at last, is the opportunity to put my head down on the pillow, pull my weary body into bed, and sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub.

It's barely daylight, still twilight when I'm awaken from my slumber by a quiet but distinct "cluck" under my bedroom window.

"No," I think. I keep my eyes shut tight. There it is again.

"Cluck."

"Oh, please, no," I plead.

Then a full blown, loud crowing and I'm now wide awake, and it's just past 5:30 am.

Having grown up on a farm, I've always had the desire to live in the country again and given the opportunity over three years ago I bought a pleasant, little home just north of Lafayette, Louisiana. It was country living inside the city limits of a small town with a population of just 1100 people. Bordering my backyard was a large field with an assortment of animals: horses, cows, sheep, goats, pigs...and more. I was delighted.

I had not counted on the free-range chickens that roamed the single street of my neighborhood. A person of the earth, I'd planned to garden and landscape. The chickens had other ideas. They sat in my fig tree, scratched in all my flower beds, pooped on my carport, pecked at my homegrown tomatoes, and yes, crowed under my windows many times early in the morning.

After a year of asking my neighbors nicely, then not so nicely, then asking the police to ask them, I finally filed a complaint for property damage and we went to court, a small country court. When the defendant was asked how he plead to the charge of property damage, he responded, in all seriousness, "Not guilty." (long pause) "It wasn't me." (pause) "It was the chickens."

I slapped my hand over my mouth to hide my reaction and to not bust out laughing. For the other folks who had been brought in on traffic citations, this was high entertainment, as it has been to most people I've talked to about the chickens.

The defendant was given a warning, and the free-range chicken population of two or three dozen in my neighborhood was reduced to zero. I was happy, went about gardening and put in grass seed with gusto.

You guess it. That lasted for a few months, new baby chickens were born, eventually came onto my property with their destructive ways, I asked the owner to take care of them, he did, all quiet for a couple of months, then the cycle repeats. I've ranted and raved, got a young cat who helped for about a year until she disappeared, considered selling my house, and complained to a lot of people about "the chicken problem."

Recently I met another comrade with similar chicken woes. We figured there must be others like us, living in small towns or in the country with recalcitrant neighbors who are not swayed by pleas to control their chickens, and no town ordinance that requires them to do so.

So we are forming a group. The Chicken Support Group, Citizens Chicken Coalition are a couple of proposed name. We invite you to post in this blog (the Chicken Chronicles?), sharing your stories, suggestions for effective ways to deal with similar chicken problems, or anything else that seems appropriate.

--Cat

cat dancing

Fowl!