Why Chickens?

I often get asked why I raise chickens.  It’s good bar banter when you are running out of conversation ideas, waiting for your table and struggle with small talk.  So usually during the second long pause I’ll just pop in with a chicken tale, and that keeps things going for a while.  But lately I have been drawing a blank when the basic question is asked.  Why chickens? This is because the original reason (more on that in a minute) is no longer valid AND, instead, an odd assortment of other reasons has landed in its place. 

So much has happened on my chicken journey that I kind of end up stuttering about what nice pets they make.   Back home and alone,  I am able to remember the original goal: it was because I wanted to make real Caesar salad one night.   And every single authentic dressing recipe listed raw egg as its critical ingredient.  Although my practical side knew that the warning on the egg carton about the “consumption of raw eggs can lead to salmonella” was just for legal protection, the far more powerful, impractical side of me bought into the possible threat.   Around this same time, my radar for things to worry about went off as I reconsidered the favorite birthday cake in our family.   The French meringue icing, made delicious by barely cooked egg whites, was a risk as well.   So now, raw egg anxiety conveniently morphed into a more general anxiety about birthday celebrations.  Getting chickens was an obvious and logical solution and certainly more convenient than hunting down Xanax before everyone’s birthday.   

But, ironically, the chicken project has evolved so differently than I ever expected.  And in this year and a half journey—I haven’t yet even made the Caesar salad.  My original chickens are all gone now, dead at the hands of the infamous clever fox made so famous in those nursery tales.  Of course, like many people, we read those same tales to our kids without any reference point about chickens in our lives; they were simply cute stories about animals outwitting each other.  We had no history with chickens.  And then we kissed goodnight.

But in a strange twist of events, my now much older children have a reference point.  It came on a clear sunny morning when the phone rang at 7:30am on our family vacation.   Our chicken “babysitter” woke up to find that the coop had been ransacked.  And suddenly, that life lesson about vulnerability and what it meant in reality was cleared up.   Backing up a bit here, as a mom to four boys I feel an extra responsibility to impart values that raise them into gentlemen; men that can connect, empathize; lead and relate; men that love; men that protect. 

By taking on ownership of chickens, we also took on a very real life lesson in the care of the vulnerable.  I wish I could explain How They Rolled Their Eyes at me every single night before the chicken disaster when I would ask them if they were SURE they closed the coop door.  But now I don’t have to explain it at all.  Nor do I have to remind them to check the door.   The week after vacation and out to dinner with my husband, I came home after dark to find out that everything had been securely locked up, locked up without any reminders or phone calls from me.    So today if someone asked me “Why Chickens?” it wouldn’t be about salad ingredients.