The four chickens were a gift from Mary and Bill. We were all fascinated with the 1 month old variety pack hens. Bill knew the children would enjoy the two Araucanas and their blue eggs. Also included in the group was an Australorp which lays brown eggs and a Dominique that is excused for laying white eggs because it is has such beautiful black and white stripes.
Within thirty minutes of arrival Emma and Cabell had declared names for each of them; Blackie, Midnight, Snowball and Stripey. The children have a habit of snap-decision naming, but fortunately feel no obligation to be permanently bound by these decisions. As a consequence we have adopted the Prince approach to appellations. Emma’s pet Araucana chicken was spontaneously named Blackie although, as she is mostly brown, I suspect any day to have a name change requiring us to call her the chicken formerly known as Blackie.
The young chickens, Blackie, Snowball, Midnight and Stripey quickly settled into an eating and scratching routine in the old chicken house while we proceeded with construction of a newer model chicken house. At first the pecking order was confusing, but within a week Blackie emerged as a group leader with Snowball and Midnight neutral and Stripey definitely the scaredy chicken.
Blackie’s reign, however, ended abruptly the day Emma left the hen-house door open. In a moment Stripey was out followed in linear fashion by Midnight and Snowball. As I spotted the exodus from across the yard I yelled to Emma to close the door, an order that she followed with uncharacteristic speed. By the time I ran to her side Emma was in tears and the prompter of the tears was Blackie in a heap in the corner of the pen. We paused to adjust to the sure reality of Blackie’s sudden death from injuries related to being caught in the slamming door. Just as I rested my hand on Emma’s sobbing shoulder to offer consolation, Blackie began to shake and slowly arise from what must have been more of a frightened prostration than fatal injury. Relieved we rounded up the three chickens that had paraded from the pen, but had failed to march on without their leader and took the opportunity to move the foursome to the newly completed Chicken Hilton.
After the scare Blackie was never the same and next-in-command, Snowball, assumed the lead. She controlled the access to leftover fruit salad that we regularly brought to the chickens. At night she flew to the rafter at the top of the house leaving the other three to roost below on the ordinary poles. Stripey, the Dominiquer, remained timid and submitted to the subordination without opposition. Stripey was not, however, banished from the food bin and we suspected that waiting last meant staying longer since she grew large and plump enough to become Butterball the chicken, formerly known as Stripey.
Then it happened on a hot July afternoon when we least expected it. The order of things in the chicken house changed from that moment of realization, from that vibration of sound wafting to our back porch from the confines of the chicken house. Cock-a-doodle-doo. We stopped all conversation and turned in disbelief in the direction of the chicken house. “Do the neighbors have a Rooster?”, we asked ourselves and then it came again. Cock-a-doodle-doo. This time the source was clear. Together we scurried to find the crower, the rooster among the hens, and arrived at the screened window of the chicken house just in time to see the head cocked back, the beak wide open and appreciate the newly sprouting bright red comb. Stripey, the rooster, formerly known as a hen was crowing.
In the past week life has changed in the chicken house. Snowball’s out and Stripey’s in charge.