Thursday 27 September 2018

What you Tame...

In 1942 Antoine de Saint~Exupery wrote: You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. 

To tame anything you must earn its trust, harder with some things than others.  Cats can be difficult, wild animals almost impossible though it can be managed if you are patient.  Baby bats are easy & very trusting.  Most birds, even injured ones, are difficult, though they seem to know when one is trying to help them.  Chickens are difficult.  Easily frightened they flinch from even the kindest hand initially & quiver @ being handled.

I am not naturally & by inclination an inveterate animal lover.  I like those animals I know, the wild ones who visit regularly & the ones we own.  I grow attached.  I try to see the world through their eyes...

Which is why I have taken so much trouble with my chooks.  It always happens.  Until you get to know an animal, they are all alike.  Without personality.  Without differentiation. When you know an animal they are distinct. They are in the process of becoming.

So when I was considering breeds I looked @ the generalisations for each breed & I chose very specifically  breeds that tolerate being confined.  Breeds that bond & are people friendly.  Breeds that are easy to manage.  I chose bigger, heavier breeds because they have great difficulty flying & if you've ever had a chook stuck up a tee you know they're worse than cats! 
Now I could keep them strictly in their hutch where it is safe & they have everything they need: food, water, mulch to scratch in, roosts for sleeping & nesting boxes to nest in but it was always my intention to give them some free ranging time each day because just like people animals get bored with the same vista day after day.

Due to the oddities of our block fencing is impossible so I try to combine free range time with my outdoor chores so I can keep an eye on my birds because they like my neighbour's yards.  My neighbours have interesting things.  One lot is trying to grow grass.  The others have a verandah with space underneath.  Some days I spend a lot of time *herding chooks* with a broken fishing rod.  Other days, like yesterday, they behave.  

I seem to have the most trouble when they lay early & I let them out earlier than usual.  Full of beans they gallivant all over the place, refuse to respond to my chuck~chuck treat call & generally head into trouble. 

Yesterday we went to the mainland.  It was almost lunch time when I got home.  Four stone cold eggs lay forlorn in the nesting boxes & my girls were boking desperately to get out despite the drizzle of rain.  Reluctantly, because I was in no mind to paddle about outside in the wind & the wet, I opened the hutch door, more than a little surprised to see the girls herding  obediently towards our verandah.  They like the safety & space underneath & there is nothing on the hill they can really destroy so this is my preferred space for them ~ & there they stayed.  A little later the rain stopped & I called them out the front where I am using them to clear up a weed patch & they stayed there too.

 I sat in a green plastic garden chair in a little patch of sunshine & the girls gathered round sociably, cocking enquiring heads, scabbing in the leaf mulch, grabbing insects I couldn't even see & chucking away to me as if indeed we understood each other very well.  Perhaps we do.  I think this is what God had in mind when he gave Adam animals to care for. I find chooks strangely serene. Peaceful.  And now we are taming each other. 

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