The Chicken Story

I bought a house with two acres in rural Texas with my ex-wife. We called the place "The Ponderosa", and Susan wasn't my ex-wife at the time. We moved into the house with her daughter and two dogs which were gifts from my mother-in-law. I never really trusted those dogs. One was a magnificent Chow, the other a squirrelly German Shepherd. The house had a run-down chicken coop next to it. When we bought the place, I had visions of chickens and fresh eggs dancing in my head. I am a city boy. I know nothing about chickens. Susan was the country girl, she was supposed to know about chickens.

One Sunday afternoon, during the Dallas Cowboy football game, Susan decided that it was time to clean out the chicken coop and purchase some livestock (chickens). After several hours of pulling weeds and mending chicken wire, we were ready to make our purchase. Our home was located in close proximity to the largest flea market in the world. I am not kidding. Canton, Texas was reputed to have the largest flea market in the world at the county fairgrounds. It probably still does. They sell livestock, including chickens.

We owned one of those large Bronco SUV's that they made during the 1980's. Susan climbed into the Bronco with a pillow case. It was a king sized pillow case from our bed. I asked her what the pillow case was for. She calmy replied, "Why, it's to put the chickens in". This did not make sense to me but I played along.

We drove to Canton. I can't quite describe how thrilled I was to be missing the Cowboy's game to make the purchase, but I was a patient man. I parked the Bronco close to the chicken exposition area, and we disembarked to walk among the chicken vendors.

The chicken shopping expedition was most enlightening to me. The chicken "hawkers" had all manner of chickens on display. Some claimed their breeds produced low cholesterol eggs. Some claimed their chickens produced white eggs, brown eggs, and speckled eggs. It didn't take long before I was bored with the chicken shopping.

I wanted to save Susan the exercise of getting some chickens into that pillow case of hers, so I struck up a conversation with one of the chicken vendors who had several cages of chickens at his feet. I sought out a cage containing a variety of good looking chickens and asked him how much he wanted for the whole lot of them, including the cage. He asked for a hundred bucks which I willingly forked over. He assured me that these were "high quality" laying chickens.

I asked Susan to bring the truck around to load the chickens. She dutifully acquiesced, I loaded the chickens and we set off for the "Ponderosa".

All I heard on the drive home was the quiet clucking of the newly purchased chickens. Susan was introspective and within a short time I was reinstalled in my recliner, sipping on a cold one.

The news of my purchase spread quickly to family members, friends and co-workers.

Everyone knows that you just cannot leave chickens to their own devices while one is at work. I had to come up with an idea to keep the chickens fed and watered while Susan and I were working. I made a trip to my friendly feed store the Monday following the chicken purchase. The nice man at the feed store indicated that there were such things as chicken feeders. It is a simple device which allows chicken feed to be stored and as the chickens feast, feed is dispensed through gravity. In a like manner there were pans available for water to be stored that could be made available to the chickens. I promptly purchased 50 pounds of chicken feed and two of the chicken feeders and two of the pans to be used to water the chickens.

I arrived home and proudly displayed my additional purchases. These purchases aptly "impressed" Susan. I now had the situation firmly under control.

It wasn't long before my co-workers were chiding me for the chicken purchase. As a matter of fact, they really did not see me in the chicken business. Soon my office was abuzz with the news. It was not unusual to have one of my friends make the comment,

"You know this is a big waste of time, you are never going to get any eggs from those chickens."

To which I normally retorted, "Oh yeah, one of these Saturday mornings, you will be eating store bought eggs, while I on the other hand, will be eating healthy home grown eggs, right from my own chickens."

For several weeks, I would come in Monday mornings and my friends would inquire about my egg inventory."Get any eggs this week?" they would ask. Usually the question would be asked with big grin on their faces. I would always have to reply that not even one egg had been produced. The volume of the chiding continued to increase, as did my retorts.

One Saturday morning, well before breakfast, Susan asked me if I had checked the chicken coop for eggs.

"You know you have to check the chicken coop frequently to find if there are eggs."

"Okay, I'll go check."

I went out and refilled the chicken feed and replenished the water. I began my inspection of the chicken coop and looked high and low in the nests which we had carefully made in the chicken house. Low and behold, what do you think I found? Yep, my very first egg, from my very own chickens. I was so proud. I beamed. I had my first egg. My head swam with what was surely to follow. I would be inundated with eggs. I would soon be selling them to my co-workers. I was eager to arrive at work this Monday morning and would be able to report the delivery of the first egg. I examined the egg closer and found it to be so nice and white. What a fine egg!

I went into the house and showed our new egg to the boss. Susan looked at it and smiled.

"What should we do with it?"

"Let's put it in the refrigerator and I will have it for breakfast tomorrow morning."

Susan agreed that the first egg should be mine. She dutifully carried it to the refrigerator and instructed her daughter, Stephanie, not to eat that one egg. After all, that was Bob's egg.

I soon forgot about that egg. It was just one of those weekends. I never did get around to asking Susan to fix that egg for me.

When Monday morning rolled around, I was eager to get into the office. One of my good friends approached me with much the usual grin.

"Any eggs this weekend?"

"Yes, of course", I immediately replied.

"What kind of egg was it?"

"Why it was a beautiful white egg."

They continued to laugh, almost uncontrollably. I just could not figure out what was so funny to them. After all this chicken enterprise was serious business.

When we went home that evening, I thought it would be good to finally feast on this first egg. When I asked her to fix it, she burst out laughing. She beckoned me into the kitchen and asked me to break it in the skillet. To my chagrin the egg was hard boiled!

Susan and my co-workers had conspired together. Susan had done the dirty work of planting the hard boiled egg. I was humbled. Their plan had worked. I suppose the chickens did not produce eggs because there was no rooster. Telling the difference between a hen and a young rooster will remain a mystery to me.

The end of the chicken business occurred a few weeks later, when the dogs got into the chicken coop and the chickens disappeared. My neighbor assured me that most of the chickens escaped.