I Despise That Chicken

This morning I read an article about how environmentally conscious hipsters are dumping their chickens by the Prius load at animal shelters, and now the animal shelters are stressed under the heavy burden of all these unwanted chickens. Apparently they are getting more than they bargained for when they adopted those fiendish adorable creatures. I hate to be the one to say "I told you so," but...

I KNEW IT WOULD COME TO THIS.

A couple years ago, when this trend of backyard hen-raising came to be, I remember thinking to myself, "HA! These people have NO CLUE what they are getting into. Nobody in their RIGHT MIND would keep chickens and enjoy it."

Because I know from experience something that all these hipsters have learned the hard way:

CHICKENS ARE THE DEVIL.

I'm not even kidding. And I can say it, because I know that they are. You see, back in the late 90's days of my youth, before chickens came into my life and stole my innocence, my mom and dad decided to buy some baby chicks. They were the original hipsters, ahead of their time. The idea was that we would raise the baby chicks to become hens and lay lots of fresh, delicious eggs.

And I, being a dutiful daughter, accepted the responsibility of caring for the chickens.

Oh, Jess. How naive you were.

As with most things that pertain to the devil, in the beginning it was OK. The chicks were adorable little yellow fluffballs and we kept them under a warming lamp in the back room of our house. They made little chirping noises and cuddled with each other and hardly ever pooped.

Idyllic visions danced in my head. Visions of barnyard chickens peacefully pecking in the yard and laying fresh, white, delicious eggs. The chicks were so cute, it seemed that nothing could go wrong with this situation. But that is HOW THE DEVIL WORKS, people. He seduces you with illusions of happiness until you've gotten yourself in deep and it's too late to turn back.

I went gung-ho with my new responsibilities. The hens needed a coop to move into when they came of age. My dad provided me with some split logs and a couple 2x4's and I nailed away for about 3 days (Don't worry, I was a husky girl. I could handle it.). At the end of that time, I had inexpertly constructed about 1/16 of one coop wall.

My dad took over after that, and within 2 hours he had raised a full chicken coop, complete with roosts and a working door.

My mom got all the necessary chicken-raising supplies, including feeding pans and watering devices, which look like an upside-down mason jar attached to a bowl. I remember Mom telling me that it was so the chickens couldn't poop in their water.

Oh, how wrong she was.

Finally the chickens were fully mature and ready to lay eggs, and we moved them into their new coop. I woke up early the next morning, my 13-year-old self excited to go out and collect the first batch of eggs and feed the chickens.

I curled my bangs and attired myself in my best baggy jeans, t-shirt, Doc Marten knockoffs, and scrunchie on my wrist. Bounding out to the chicken coop, egg basket in hand, I thought to myself what a wonderful thing it was that we had chickens. I'd become a regular chicken maid; a teenage expert in romantic fowl-rearing. I'd support my scrunchie habit on the sales of my fresh eggs...

Then I opened the coop door and met with a horrifying scene.

Poop. There was poop everywhere.

Poop.

Everywhere.

I mean everywhere.

There was at least 6 inches of chicken poop covering every flat surface and many non-flat surfaces. Poop streaked the walls of the coop. The feeding pans were covered with poop. The supposedly magical poop-proof watering jars were somehow coated with poop both inside and out.

In a daze, I stumbled back to the house to trade my Docs for some more practical chore boots before I could actually venture inside the coop. Once I entered that den of iniquity, 10 chickens immediately flew on my head and pooped all over my body. They ruined my bangs and befouled my perm with their feces. Eventually--after I had removed each clawed chicken from my body--in a pile of poop-covered poop, I found 3 eggs. One was tiny and deformed (we later found it had no yolk). All 3 eggs were absolutely coated with chicken crap.

At this point, I realized that we had made a horrible, horrible mistake. But we had hens; there was no turning back now. We had made our bed, now we had to lie in it.

Providing a clean, humane home for the chickens soon turned into drudgery of the worst kind. Each day was more horrific than the last. Every morning I would wake up, put on my worst clothes, and tromp out to the coop to feed the chickens, change their water, collect the eggs, and shovel poop. Every day dawned a new, poop filled nightmare. I am convinced I spent fully half that year just shoveling the mounds and mounds of black and white chicken poo. The chicken turds that I slung would have been enough to fertilize the entire bread basket region of Europe.

The days began to blur together like a nightmarish, crap-filled, endless video loop. It seemed there would be no end.

Enter my two younger brothers.

At that point in his life, my dad was really into trapping. And sled dogs. So he had a ton of traps put away for the summer and my brothers, young, curious, with deadly hunter instincts, could not resist themselves.

They set a few traps around the yard. I think they were hoping to catch a fox or maybe a couple skunks or raccoons.

Instead my chickens escaped and fell victim to the traps. It was a glorious day.

But sadly, not all the nefarious fowl were killed. And it seemed that even though a quarter of the flock had been lost, the amount of chicken poop did not decrease.

Then a few months later, my family went on an overnight camping trip. When we came home, we found that one of the sled dogs had gotten loose and slaughtered all the chickens. They lay dead, their bloody corpses, severed limbs, and torn-out feathers littering the yard.

I had never seen so beautiful a sight in all my life.

I scratched the dog's ears and gave him an extra treat that day. He was my hero.

And thus, the world was rid of a great evil and my permanent wave was no more polluted by flying poultry poop.

The End.