Chabo Houdini wants to sleep up on this wall. The last three night I picked him off the wall by a citrus tree and put him in a box I can screen off from predators for the night.. Tonight he found a spot on the wall that is usually out of my sight.. But still within a sight line from the train tracks, I've seen Tanuki Raccon dogs along those tracks twice... I'm not sure how well Tanuki, weasels, martins, badgers and whatnot can see but the bird probably smells nice to predators too... He's a tough little fighter with other roosters but very docile when I pick him up.. just trembles and maybe clucks a little every once in a while.. It's surprising how resigned to their fate the chickens seem to be once they are under control.. It feels like we should be kinder to them, like we broke some sort of covenant by cooping them in animal factories and treating them like inert meat from egg to table.. They started out their relationship with people as religious companions, letting us know of the first light, it was only later they came to be valued for eggs and meat.. (Andrew Lawler _Why Did the Chicken Cross the World_).. It's nice having the bird in the yard. Old ladies like to watch them while sitting in the window drinking tea (the ladies not the birds, the birds mill around at our feet while we cast hemp seed to gather them to us).. School kids stop by while walking home to gawk at the birds: Moms and little boys enjoy a little sense of wonder with liviing beings before and after watching trains race by... Hopefully the little kids will learn to attend to life more than machines...
#Chabo #ChaboHoudini #チャボ #BackYardChickens