9. The Chicken And The Eggs

aka The Egg And I

One of the funniest books I have read is Betty Macdonald's "The Egg and I". This is a true story of her life as a newly wedded young wife, suddenly uprooted from the warmth and security of a large family, living in a busy town and dumped on a derelict farm in the mountains of a remote North West state of America, where she and her husband settled down to raise chickens.

Her narrative of life among these feathered idiots is hilarious, and her opinions of the chicken certainly coincide with my own, as I too, when a young married man, kept a flock in our back garden. This was partly to provide nourishment for my family, food rationing being in force, but mainly to satisfy that urge to be self sufficient which is in the make up of most of us. I too, found that the idyllic vision of gathering fresh warm eggs from the nest boxes while the busy clucking hens pecked in the clean sweet- smelling litter for corn, at my feet, was only the gift wrapping around a long period of hard work and frustration from day old chicks to seven month old layers. The day olds, which we kept in a box in the airing cupboard with a hundred watt bulb for warmth, vied with each other to see who could crap the fastest in the nice clean food put down for them. No matter how warm and free from draught you kept them, when they decided to die, they'd stand and droop and die, helped on their way by the other fluffy members of the Mafia who trod all over each other in their eagerness to peck the eyes out of suicide sister, and hasten another 3/6d down the drain. We felt that they knew how much we paid for them and were determined to double their value, as half of them always died off, not from any known ailment but through sheer bloody mindedness. And as for mess, the only creatures equal to the chicken when it comes to converting the Garden of Eden into an overflowing sewerage are the hippo and the duck. If you've seen the hippo pool in any zoo and Mr. Hippo cruising about with his gaping maw, shovelling in everything that's floating, then you'll know what I mean, and Donald Duck, aided by his family, will turn any garden into a morass that would make Verdun look like the Chelsea flower show, if let loose in it for more than a day.

I once conned my brother into helping me clean out the chicken house, and as we shovelled and scraped the soggy, smelly layer of droppings from under the perches and off the house floor, he paused from filling his bucket, straightened his back, looked disdainfully at the dripping shovel and said, "I bet these birds hate your guts, it takes them all week to lay this nice comfortable layer of tom-tit, and you come along rake it all up and shove down a load of straw and disinfectant and make 'em start all over again". I said, "All week ? you must be joking, I cleaned 'em all out three days ago". "Three days", looking disbelievingly at the heap of manure, "I thought they were supposed to lay eggs, they don't have much time for that, do they ?". I assured him that they did indeed lay eggs but I presumed they didn't know when as something was always going on behind, as apart from all this food recycling effort, the randy old cockerel who ran with them, was forever trying to better his previous days' conquests and while they did lay their eggs in the nest boxes, they probably thought that they were a kind of indoor toilet created especially for constipation days.

We went into breakfast and for some peculiar reason, brother seemed to have lost his appetite after all that hard graft in the fresh air and turned down a lovely plate of eggs and bacon for a couple of slices of dry toast. He always had a delicate stomach, right from childhood.

The chicken can bring out the basic instincts of the nicest folk quicker than any other of God's creatures, great and small. I was horribly alarmed one day when I heard my wife shouting and screaming in the garden. What I saw and heard on dashing outside, shook me rigid. There was this delicate young Goddess, at whose feet I worshipped, this gentle and innocent creature who had to have the mildest of jokes explained to her over and over again because she didn't know the meaning of the swear words, chasing the cockerel round the garden, taking terrific swipes at him with a lump of wood, and calling him words I didn't think she'd heard.

David, me & Nanny and, err, not a chicken.  Best I could do. Sorry. c1975. 



When he'd finally taken refuge up a tree and she'd thrown the timber after him, I said "What's all that about?". "I just fed him and went to pick an egg out of the nest box, and he rushed in and pecked a bloody great lump out of my hand" she fumed, "just you get out there tonight and wring that sod's neck" and stomped indoors for elastoplast and aspirin. See what I mean about chickens ? Not only had he shattered some of the beautiful illusions I treasured, but looked like destroying the great big he-man image that I fondly hoped I presented to my wife, as I was now committed to wringing his damn neck and I'd never done that before. What's more, I was dead Chicken about doing it (what a terrible pun !). So, with nightfall, after making supper last for two hours, and mustering my rapidly shrinking courage, with an effort that made my throat feel like it had swallowed half a yard of sandy ballast, said "Well, better nip out and kill the cockerel for tomorrow's dinner", in a voice several times higher than normal, and strode out looking like a cave man off to supply a dinosaur for lunch. I think I had an idea that I could wring his neck while he was asleep, as I eased the door open quietly and carefully shone the torch along the perch and met the flare of his eyes looking straight at me. He must have known I hadn't come to tuck him in comfortably for the night, as he came off that perch like a rocket with a screech that made me drop the torch and slam the door hard as I could, and then lean against it while my stomach slowly descended from my neck back to it's normal position. His enraged squawks gradually died and when I picked up the torch, I saw he wasn't hollering in anger, but agony as he'd caught his stupid neck between the door and the jamb and had choked to death. I mentally crossed hit-man off my list of talents, tied his legs together and hung him in the shed for plucking in the morning. 

Going back into the house with the nonchalant manner of the trained poultry slaughterer I answered my wife's unspoken question with "No bother, he won't peck you no more", and retired to the kitchen for a cup of tea and a fag. 

Still, one ought not to make out that you are what you ain't, as the whole thing rebounded on me, cos, great big fearless he-man image now re-established in the eyes of Goddess on a pinnacle, made her tell everyone who kept chickens up our road, that I'd kill their birds off at Christmas as I could do it alright, no trouble at all. And I had to as none of the blokes fancied doing it either, and jumped at the chance to get it done for a packet of fags. 

Often wondered if she heard the cup rattling on the saucer when I drank that tea, cos I couldn't stop my hand shaking. Shouldn't think so, but as I said, that chicken does bring out the basic instincts in the nicest folk.