Episode 22: Childhood Pets and the Chicken Journal (12/10/2020)

Hey y’all. Welcome to Fast Facts for Gen Z. I’m your host, Callie, and I don’t know anything about anything. Join me on my exploration of the world, and I’ll tell you everything you ever, and never, wanted to know, through the eyes of Generation Z.

Today’s episode: the impact of pets on kids and a fond look into my family’s pet history through the journal we kept when we had chickens.

I’d like to start out by saying that this journal was kept on a legal pad, and the title at the top of the pages is “Chicken Journal,” which is absolutely phenomenal. We also had a Fish Journal and a Hermit Crab journal, during the period when we had them. But the chickens, besides being the most interesting, spanned the longest period of time, I believe. My very organized mother kept a log of important events and included dates, so I can tell you the timeframe of everything that happened here with perfect accuracy.

Oh, it’s important to mention that a lot of the important events in the journal are chicken deaths. If the death of pets is not something you want to hear about, this episode probably isn’t for you. Maybe try the Star Wars one! It’s good too. Okay, onto the journal.

The first entry in the journal is dated “May 2009,” which was eleven years ago. I would have been seven years old, I believe, and finishing first grade. The entry reads, “started building coop.” My dad built our chicken coop himself, complete with an enclosed space for roosting and laying and a way for him to pull the coop around so it didn’t sit in one spot on the ground for too long. I don’t remember the construction of the coop, but I do remember painting it. I painted a chicken on the side of it that looked basically like a sausage, if my memory serves. Like a big U with a beak and feet. I was an exceptional artist, if I do say so myself. Still am. Honestly, that’s probably how I would still draw a chicken. What do chickens look like? Anyway, apparently, we finished the coop on June 16, 2009, and were ready for our first group of chickens.

The following day, June 17, 2009, we bought three young hens from a woman on Craigslist. The journal reads: “1 black and white Easter Egger – Fluffy. 1 gold and black Easter Egger – Goldie. 1 black and white Silver Laced Wyandotte – Specks.” As you can imagine, Fluffy was a rather fluffy chicken, Goldie was gold and black, and Specks had specks on her feathers. Seven year olds are good at naming things. The two Easter Eggers were aptly named, as Fluffy laid giant green eggs – literally, green – and Goldie lay lovely light pink ones.

A quick side note about Fluffy – she lived the longest out of any chicken we have. In fact, she lived so long that her death is not even recorded in the journal. But I won’t spoil the ending of our chicken journey yet.

Fluffy and the neighborhood stray, Cookie, not really sure what to make of each other

The next entry takes place in December 2009 and includes all the events of that month. First, Goldie, my personal favorite of the first three, contracted Marek Disease and died. I remember being very very sad. I think it was the first time a pet I had really loved died. The little tropical fish we had definitely didn’t count, as I wasn’t emotionally attached. But Goldie’s passing made me really upset. Marek disease is a pretty common viral infection that causes in chickens, and apparently it’s highly contagious. It also is essentially universal, so most chickens will have traces of it in their blood if tested, but not all will ever show symptoms. It can be prevented by vaccination, so after that, we made sure that any young chickens we got had been vaccinated. Also, I learned literally today that she didn’t die of Marek disease; my parents euthanized her. And by euthanized, I mean with a shotgun… how else are you supposed to do it??? It was the humane thing, since she was so sick and if they hadn’t removed her from the flock, the others would’ve gotten it too, but it’s funny that I didn’t learn that until today.

The second event of December 2009 reads, “bought Snowball – white Plymouth Rock. 12 weeks old.” Snowball was purely white, absolutely adorable, and mean as hell. She was a broody and SUPER overprotective of her eggs. Eventually, it got to the point where we had to remove her from the rest of the flock because she was being so darn mean. She basically thought she was a rooster. In fact, for a while, WE thought she was a rooster because of how mean she was, until she started laying eggs. I still loved her though. A note on the next line says: “Note: Snowball was likely a leghorn!” I had to ask my dad what this meant, and it just meant that we suspected Snowball was not, in fact, a Plymouth Rock, but a different, more flighty and temperamental breed of chicken called a Leghorn. You know, like the cartoon rooster, Foghorn Leghorn. I believe that. I just did a quick Google search, and it said the temperament of a Plymouth Rock chicken is, and I quote, “calm.” Snowball was absolutely, 100% not calm. So yeah, who knows.

Snowball, ready to peck if anyone comes near

The next entry takes place in such a specific time frame as “spring 2010,” and the entry reads: “Snowball eaten by wild animal – hawk, dog, coyote – don’t know.” Being bright white and very loud, I am definitely not surprised she got taken by another animal, especially living in the woods with ample hawks, owls, coyotes, dogs, etc. I liked her, but the flock was definitely happier without her rocking the boat, even if they were a little lonely with just two. Specks and Fluffy got along well though, because Fluffy was very assertive and Specks was either very willing to follow Fluffy’s lead, or very dumb. Either way, they were a good team.

Sadly, the next entry, in November of 2010, Specks also contracted Marek disease and died. Since she, Goldie, and Fluffy all came from the same place, Specks wasn’t vaccinated either. My poor friends found her when they were leaving out house after a playdate, and they knocked on the door again and were like, “uhhh… your chicken is… not alive.” Very sad. Especially more sad because now Fluffy was all alone! And you can’t have a chicken all alone, they get so sad!

So, on November 28, we got two more young chickens. The entry reads: “bought Velvet and Domino. Velvet is a Partridge Rock. Domino is a “Dominique.” The phrase “Partridge Rock” threw me off because it is not, in fact, a breed of chicken. Pretty soon, though, I realized that Velvet was a Plymouth Rock, like we thought Snowball was, but her color was called “partridge.” She was brown. Just brown. Shiny though, so I named her Velvet. Domino looked exactly how you think: black and white. Dots. Apparently, the Dominique is the oldest breed of chicken in North America, and it’s also called the Pilgrim Fowl because they were brought to North America from England in the colonial era.

Domino and Velvet

Chickens aren’t native to the Americas, they’re native to Asia, so any chickens here got here because somebody brought them. There is actually a chicken mystery on the west coast of Central and South America, because there’s evidence of chickens from wayyyyyyyyy before there’s evidence of any people who didn’t walk over on the land bridge, but nobody can quite figure out how they got there. I find that fascinating. We know they didn’t swim, or walk, or fly, because it’s the Pacific Ocean. So who brought them there??? When??? How??? There is evidence of certain island cultures having seaworthy vessels, kind of like giant canoes, and I mean GIANT. Those cultures probably could have had chickens because they were in trade with areas of Asia to which chickens were native, but they lived on islands that are almost certainly too far away from South America for either the humans or the chickens to have survived that journey, because they simply couldn’t carry enough food. And, you know, if the humans were running out of food, they would have eaten the chickens. So nobody knows! Isn’t that crazy! Nobody knows!

Anyway, apparently our little flock of three: Fluffy, Velvet, and Domino, lived happily together for nearly a year, because the next journal entry was written on November 5, 2011, the day after my ninth birthday. It reads: “Velvet died abruptly – we think it was a respiratory infection, but we don’t know. :(“ What a birthday present! I think I have a memory of this happening, but I’m not sure, and whatever memory I do have of this is not associated in any way with my birthday, so at least that’s good. After that it was just Fluffy and Domino for a while. We wanted to get another, but they seemed happy, so it wasn’t our priority.

The two of them lived together until May 18, 2012, when Domino was killed by a wild animal. The notes say dog or fox, but I’m not sure, since my neighbor actually found her body. I’m not sure what would have killed a chicken but not eaten it, but I’m leaning towards, like, domestic dog. Once again, poor Fluffy was all alone. She was such a trooper!

On May 26, 2012, we got two more chickens. The journal reads: “got Comet and Crow from a seller on Craigslist. Comet is a red Comet, Crow is a black Australorp.” My neighbors also had chickens during this time, and they had had several Comet chickens, all of whom were named Comet. So, when we got one, we hopped on that trend. Crow earned her name by being a purely black chicken. Three years after we named Fluffy, Goldie, and Specks, my sister and I had not improved our pet-naming abilities. I don’t remember Comet particularly well, which probably means she was as normal as chickens get, but Crow was the epitome of stupid. Like, you look up stupid in the dictionary, and there she is. She would be following the flock, clucking contentedly as they waddled along, and then she’d turn around for a moment and suddenly be completely lost. She would be right behind them, facing the other way, squawking and screeching and calling out for the flock. She’d start running around looking for them, despite the fact that she was just with them moments before she had turned her head. No short-term memory, that one, but strong instincts to stay with the flock.

Comet and Crow… I know Comet looks a little wild here, but I always thought the chickens were quite cute

For a while, it was those three, and they were happy as clams, except for the little exception of Crow being stupid as all-get-out. But on August 4, 2012, Comet passed suddenly of an unknown illness. Apparently the other chickens were sad enough for my mom to note: “Crow seems very lonely.” I think that Fluffy was probably well-aware that Crow couldn’t tell her head from her tail, and was not thrilled to suddenly be left alone with her. Pretty soon, on August 25, we got two identical Barred Plymouth Rocks, which were black and white the way Domino was. We named them Everest and Occoneechee, after the tallest mountain and the closest mountain, and we used those names interchangeably because they looked, I repeat, identical.

I want to note here that while you might Google the life expectancy of a chicken and find that it says 10 years, when you have free-range hens in the woods like we did, that life expectancy goes wayyyy down. Of course, life expectancies for fragile animals like birds aren’t super accurate anyway. As HenCam.com put it, “You can expect to lose birds to predators. Some chickens die in accidents; I had a chicken fall off a roost and break her neck. Chickens die from respiratory ailments. They mysteriously die around the age of three.” The author compared saying the life expectancy is 10 years to saying, “my grandmother lived to be 102, so all grandmothers live that long.” With chickens, it’s simply not the case. So while it is sad that we lost so many hens, I’m convinced that we couldn’t have really done anything to stop it. Letting them free-range and only keeping them in at night left them more vulnerable to predators, sure, but it also enriched their diet and minds and gave them a much more natural environment to explore. They always came home to roost. I believe we did the best we could for their quality of life. I’m also totally okay with feeding predators! Helps the ecosystem!

Our little flock of four apparently thrived for a long time, and I believe the Chicken Journal was largely forgotten. I’ll let my memory fill in the gaps. At some point, Crow’s stupidity got the best of her, and she wandered off into the woods, never to be seen again. Presumably she got eaten by some smarter animal. None of the rest of the flock seemed too disturbed by this. Fluffy, at 4 or 5 years old, was still the head of the flock, and Everest and Occoneechee were perfectly happy following her around.

My other neighbors got chickens during this time as well, so three of the families in the area had chickens, and we all let them free-range. The difference with this new family, though, is that they got a rooster named Mr. Wickham, after the Bad Guy McBad of Pride and Prejudice. Now, this was not the first rooster in the neighborhood, but the other one was a little Bantam, convinced he was a hen, and named Dinner in case he ever acted up. He did not, and was eventually renamed Steve. Mr. Wickham, however, was not little. He was a New Hampshire Red, which means however you imagine a standard rooster, that’s how he looked. He was big, and he was mean. He would attack people on sight, and he would go for the head. He harassed our chickens. My sister and I literally couldn’t play outside anymore, because if he saw us, he charged. When my dad did yard work, he’d go outside with a plastic wiffle ball bat, and he used it more than once. We couldn’t convince my neighbors not to let him out, so we decided that we couldn’t let our chickens free-range anymore. It just wasn’t worth them getting bullied by Mr. Wickham. So, we built them a pretty tall, large run, put their coop in there, and let that be that. They were happy to not be around the rooster anymore, but I think restricting their world to just a circle in the woods was kind of sad.

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before predators notice something as obtrusive as a chicken run, and as hard as we tried, we did not manage to predator-proof it well enough to keep the foxes out. During the summer, the chickens liked to roost on top of their coop at night instead of inside because it was hot, and since they were in the run, sometimes we forgot to take them off and put them inside, assuming it was predator-proofed enough. Foxes, of course, can outsmart nearly anything. A pair, a male and a female, moved in to a burrow behind our house, and in June of 2014, they snuck into the run at night and stole one of the Barred Rocks. No clue who it was. I think we decided it was Occoneechee. From then on, we made sure to keep Fluffy and Everest in their coop at night, but even that wasn’t enough. About a week later, on June 23, 2014, Fluffy was taken by the foxes as well. I cried. After all those years, Fluffy finally became a predator’s target.

When Fluffy was gone, we took it as a sign. We didn’t like having to keep them in a run, but we couldn’t free-range with the rooster around. Everest was all alone, and she certainly wasn’t in a position to lead a flock of new, young hens after losing both her flockmates in a week. When the Fluffy era ended, our chicken era ended. We took Everest to a nearby farm that had a chicken flock. I don’t know what happened to her after that, but I like to imagine that she lived happily ever after until she achieved what none of our chickens, and very few in general, ever achieve: death by old age. The last Chicken Journal entry, squeezed on the very bottom line of the page, reads: “June 23, 2013 – chickens killed by fox :(”

I loved having chickens. I loved having fresh eggs nearly every day. I loved the little sounds they made and the way they scratched at the ground beneath them and then backed up to see if they found any bugs. They liked oatmeal, surprisingly, so we gave them some when it was cold outside. I have very fond memories of chickens. Of course, I know they were a lot of work, but growing up in a family with no pets other than tropical fish and a few hermit crabs, the chickens were the closest things I ever had to animal companions. Even if they were, especially in the case of Crow, mind-bogglingly stupid. These days, the only animal in the house is my snake, Fred, who I fought tooth-and-nail for for months before I was allowed to have him. I love him dearly.

I think animals are really impactful. I think they’re really important. Humans are one of the only animals who keeps others as pets, as companions solely for entertainment and comfort. I think there was a captive gorilla who had a pet cat, and there are stories of elephants adopting dogs, but humans are the only ones who consistently domesticate other animals, just for fun. I think that says something. We seek friendship everywhere, from the silliest birds to the shapes of clouds in the sky. My robot vacuum has a name: Eddie. In a world full of people – over 7 and a half billion – we seek friendship with creatures we can’t even communicate with, just because we have an unending desire to extend compassion, care, and love. It’s remarkable. Pets are central to the human experience, right up there with cooking and learning other languages. There are lots of things about humans that I don’t love, and lots of things I’m upset about. But in a scary world such as this, pets are a constant reminder of the endless love of humanity.

Thank you for listening to Fast Facts for Gen Z. You can follow this podcast to be notified when new episodes come out, and you can find transcripts of every episode on my website at www.fastfactsforgenz.wordpress.com. This is Callie, signing off.