|
The humane society had the two young chickens, a rooster and a hen, in an outdoor kennel. When I stepped in to collect them, they took refuge in each other, alternating between hiding under each other's wings. Like every chick at every hatchery, these two young birds had hatched under bright lights, never knowing the love and care of a mother hen. At the factory farm, they had been crowded together with other youngsters, with only each other for comfort.
Touched by their devotion to each other, I gently set them in cat carriers and placed the carriers facing each other in the back seat of the car. On the way home, I sang to them. As we neared home, my thoughts turned to Viktor, who had no idea what was coming, so I made up a song about that.
Viktor seemed to experience a rush of forgotten feelings when meeting the new birds. Immediately upon catching sight of them, he launched into a sequence of what must have been every instinctive behavior lodged anywhere in his body. He clucked and scolded like a mother hen. He crowed and danced like an adult rooster. He rejoiced like a young bird finding a friend, then raised an alarm cry as if he had seen a predator.
He was clearly confused about what to do. And no wonder! He had spent his first six weeks in a darkened shed with tens of thousands of birds of his own age and sex and the next couple of months with Miriam and I. He had never met his mother or been taught by an elder rooster how to get along in a flock. Suddenly confronted with a social situation, he didn’t know what to do. Should he treat the young rooster like a peer or a subordinate? Should he court or parent the young hen?
Eventually, Viktor settled on the role of single parent and soon became singularly devoted to the young birds, showing them where to forage, keeping an eye on their movements, and shooing them into the coop at night. If they transgressed whatever rules he believed they should be following, he let them know about it with a sharp peck on the head. But Viktor was still quite young himself and, like a teen parent who has never witnessed good parenting, he sometimes made poor choices when correcting his young charges. One overly zealous peck accidentally opened up a cut on Chickweed’s neck. Since Chickweed and Violet were so close, we decided to give them both a couple of days in the inside until the scratch scabbed over.
Viktor stood and stared as I picked up Violet and Chickweed and carried them up the back steps and into the house. He continued to stand and stare when I came out a few minutes later to take him to bed. “Come on, Viktor” I said, heading for the coop door and trusting that he would follow me as usual. I heard his steps behind me, and then I fell forward as what felt like a bowling ball hit me in the lower back.
Sweet, gentle Viktor had attacked me! I understood immediately: He was angry at me for taking his chicks. There was no other explanation. I wasn’t in the act of taking them, and I was walking away from him, so he wasn’t trying to protect himself or them. He was mad. And justifiably so. He didn’t know that I had taken them inside to take care of them or that I intended to bring them back outside again. He didn’t know what was going to happen to them. All he knew was that they were gone and I had taken them.
The next morning, Viktor went right back to the spot where he had been standing when he last saw Violet and Chickweed. He remained in that spot, watching the back door, for the two days that they remained inside. He didn’t take his usual ambling walks around the yard. He hardly ate at all. And he wanted nothing to do with me.
Looking out the kitchen window at Viktor’s vigil, I marveled at his devotion to the two birds who had been strangers to him only a week before. Anyone could see that he was grieving their loss and longing for their return. That got me thinking about how chickens and other animals must suffer when they see family members or longtime companions taken off to slaughter. How many every day? How much aggregated sorrow? I rested my forehead on the windowpane, my tears feeling inadequate and beside the point.
When I brought Violet and Chickweed back outside to Viktor, he scolded rather than welcomed them, as we also tend do when someone has worried us very much. But, soon enough, Viktor relented and the three spring chickens took off on their daily expedition, wandering deeply into the wooded yard to see what they could see.
| 
