Dumb Clucks

In the Bible, God refers to us as sheep. This is because we are so easily led. We think we're not, but we are. We tend to follow fashions. We watch popular television shows. So many of us are so keen to be part of what most everyone else is doing - all the while claiming our individuality.

Mad Magazine once did a spoof on advertising. I remember one they did for cigarettes.

Joe Schluff is his own kind of man. He smokes Goober Cigarettes because everyone else does.

So, we're sheep. But you know what? I've got another animal humans behave like: chickens.

Have you ever raised chickens? We did. Just for the one summer. It was Mother's idea. She ordered 100-chicks from some nursery and they came special delivery. We didn't have a chicken coop, so we let them run free in the porch. Guess who got to take care of them?

Most were white, but there were three reds and one grey speckled. Naturally, the grey speckled became my favorite. After all, it was the only one I could tell apart from the others.

It all would have been fine, I suppose, had we just moved some things out of the porch. But we didn't. That would have been too intelligent. So we left all kinds of implements and things there to be pooped on. And they were. Including our huge freezer chest. Imagine going out to get meat or something out of the freezer and having to bring a towel so you didn't get chicken poop on your hands? We were hillbillies. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

There was another problem with the freezer. It wasn't flush against the wall. Couldn't be. If it were, you couldn't open the top. So there was roughly one foot of space between the freezer and the wall. And every time someone walked into the porch the chickens would panic and run to hide. Well, the best place they found was behind the freezer. Now the freezer couldn't have been more than six or eight feet long and three or four feet high. This hardly is enough room for 100 chickens. So they piled one on top of the other - smothering those on the bottom.

The chickens also chose this place to roost at night. In less than a month our chicken population dwindled by at least thirty. Every morning it was my job to flush out the living chickens and throw the dead ones on the garbage pile. And one day it was my lonely task to pull out my speckled grey.

When the weather was nice we fixed up a small shed for the chickens. We also let them run free over the yard during the day. This was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, playing backyard baseball, tag, or anything else was no fun when one had to avoid the poop. On the other hand, our yard was notorious for wood tics. One could not walk fifty feet without picking up at least six. The record was eleven. However, once the chickens began roaming the yard, the wood tic population went down to nearly nothing.

There is another thing about chickens I wonder if most people are aware: they're cannibals and murderers. Let any chicken become weak or injured and the others will begin pecking at it. Constantly. No compassion. No help. Just harassment. The poor chicken will be worried to death. Literally.

Out of the 100 chicks we began with we finished with about fifty. They killed themselves. Well, mostly. Three neighbor boys, including my friend, Chris, shot about a dozen. They thought it was funny. Even after Mother called the police. Chris hung out with some really stupid and cruel boys sometimes. Eventually, he would grow up and they wouldn't. They stopped hanging out together. But that didn't help our chickens that summer.

We didn't do chickens again. Too much of a bother.

I wonder if God thinks something similar about us.

NEVER going to do people again. Never.