OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 2016
Well-loved chickens peck out
a prominent place in modern life
G
randpa used to say non-rural Ameri-
cans don’t realize chickens are living
beings, but think they are only neatly
plastic-wrapped meat pieces in Styrofoam
trays that materialize as if by magic in grocery
coolers.
Pragmatic farmers,
he and Grandma didn’t
make pets of all their
chickens. The chopping
block awaited most.
There are few sights cal-
culated to make more of
an impression on a kid
than a suddenly head-
less chicken racing
across the farmyard in
Matt
a preposterous postmor-
Winters
tem dash for freedom.
A valuable lesson there:
Rebel or escape before the ax falls.
Grandma did have distinct favorites.
She coddled a few laying hens who might
have succumbed to old age were it not for
the never-ending caravan of foxes, skunks,
hawks and other varmints drawn to chicken
coops like ants to a picnic. Fretting about the
hens’ well-being, observing their “Downton
Abbey”-like interactions and personalities,
making sure each life was as rewarding as a
chicken’s can be — all were integral aspects of
the sport of country life. Grandma, a button or
two on her worn-out shirt replaced with safety
pins, standing in the warm sun with a bright-
red hen tucked under one arm — a picture of
mutual contentment.
Helping gather eggs was among my favor-
ite chores, reaching into the sweet, warm straw
to discover what was there. An even bigger
treat was coming upon a hidden, feral nest laid
by some rogue hen in the bushes or outbuild-
ings. There’s nothing to warm the hearts of
boys like festering, forgotten, rotten eggs —
eye-watering chemical grenades to fantasize
lobbing at big bullies or Nazis.
The Egg and us
Chickens are fashionable. Maybe they
always have been, at least here in the Paci¿ c
Northwest.
The Egg and I, Betty MacDonald’s 1945
run-away bestseller, chronicled the adven-
tures of a novice chicken farmer on the Olym-
pic Peninsula near Port Townsend. It is one of
the ¿ rst grown-up books I can recall seeing
around home. But MacDonald’s humor hasn’t
aged well, coming off as a little curdled.
“I really tried to like chickens. But I
couldn’t get close to the hen either physically
or spiritually, and by the end of the second
spring I hated everything about the chicken
but the egg,” she wrote. “I learned to my sor-
row that baby chickens are stupid; they smell;
they have to be fed, watered and looked at, at
least every three hours. Their sole idea in life
is to jam themselves under the brooder and get
killed; stuff their little boneheads so far into
their drinking fountains they drown; drink
cold water and die…”
In contrast, my brother, Greg in Chey-
enne, and cousin, Gordon Kley in Ferndale,
:ash., Tuite love their À ocks, gaining constant
entertainment and a cornucopia of delicious
bug-protein-infused eggs from their pampered
ladies. They are part of a chicken renaissance
Chickens
are fashionable.
Maybe they
always have been .
Submitted Photo
ABOVE: Seaview chicken aficionado Nansen Malin did her best to save ailing hen
Little Jane Peck. She wrote this obituary : “Jane died last night — we had a good day
together. She spent time taking warm baths, went for a walk in my arms to the vet, ate
her favorite mealy worms, spent time looking for bugs in the grass and I held her. It
isn’t easy being an urban farmer — and death is part of it. … RIP Little Red Hen.” TOP:
Raising chickens is a long tradition on the Lower Columbia. Above, Elizabeth Nurmin-
en Takko cares for her flock in Knappton, Wash., across the river from Astoria, in 1918.
Note the fishing net hung to protect the hens from marauding hawks, eagles and owls.
in the U.S. as our generation relearns youth-
ful pleasures and tastes. For example, a Goo-
gle search for “chicken blog” turns up 74.5
million results, generated by hundreds or per-
haps thousands of latter-day Betty MacDon-
alds recounting avian exploits. (See tinyurl.
com/Chicken-Blogs for links to some award
winners.)
For a brief time this week, the most pop-
ular article on The New York Times website
was about chickens, reporting 276 as the aver-
age number of eggs laid per year by a hen in
U.S. commercial operations. Cornell Endur-
ance, a hen who died early in the 20th cen-
tury at age 12, set a lifetime record of 1,232
eggs. In 2013, a British hen laid her last two
eggs at age 17.
Nan loves her girls
My favorite chicken tales come from Nan
Malin of Seaview, a good friend who is a
multi-faceted internet celebrity in addition to
chairing the Paci¿ c County Republican Party.
I’ve been following her chicken reports for
the past year or so, and with many others was
touched by her fruitless efforts to save an ail-
ing hen, aided by veterinarian Catherine Lind-
blad Ketel.
Using the framework of an old coop
donated by retired Paci¿ c County Commis-
sioner Bud Cuffel, Nan and her husband, Brett
built, a replica in their yard of the Seaview
Depot of the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation
Co., and then named their hens after the vil-
lage’s historical women.
“The ¿ rst 12 weeks they were in the house
(in the entry room),” Nan told me. “I would sit
and handle them while talking to them. Right
away they had personality, and I let them
reveal who they were before naming them.
Dorothy Elliott was the ¿ rst to be named. It
was so obvious who Dorothy was!! We have
formed a bond. Now when I go into the coop,
they all want hugs. I forgot to mention, I even
eat healthier — thinking ‘would the girls want
my leftovers?’”
Thanks to Brett, they have “red brocade
curtains on their nesting boxes, to give a nod
to the shanghaied days of Astoria,” Nan said.
Like a proud mama, she has a hard time
deciding which chicken story is her favorite,
but offers this one:
“I received an extra chick in the box of lit-
tle chirping chicks. So I raised it. I had a sus-
picion there was a rooster in the mix, but
couldn’t tell — I anxiously waited for signs.
At ¿ rst I thought Dorothy Elliott’s outgoing
personality seemed — well masculine … but
another one started to look different. … Then
we had our ¿ rst big wind storm of the season,
and the girls were truly frightened. I went out
to the coop to check on them and say some
calming words. They were about 15 weeks
old. All were up on the top roost, shaking. One
of them looked at me, and let out the cutest
little ‘cock a doodle do.’ Of course, he was a
rooster! He was scared, but determined to pro-
tect the girls.”
Nan said he has since been re homed at a
“rooster rescue -type place in Clatskanie. We
met at the KFC parking lot in Astoria for the
hand-off!” Lucky for him, he came from a lov-
ing family and will never personally experi-
ence the fate of KFC’s anonymous chicken
throngs — roughly 1 billion a year.
Her little À ock makes Nan’s life better.
“Taking care of them is a daily meditative
process, it takes me away from technology,
and centers me in ways I never expected. I
enjoy taking little breaks in my day to check
on them, and see the egg production. I do
have a web cam, and if I am away, I check on
them all the time. Especially at night, when
they are in bed, I count them via the web cam
to make sure everyone is in the coop and on
the roost,” Nan said. “Many people have
chickens. They have read about my girls on
Facebook. Including (Democratic State Sen. )
Dean Takko! Now when I see politicians,
we talk chickens, and it is nice to have some
common ground.”
Maybe owning chickens should be a
requirement for serving in the Legislature or
Congress — a humble way to build stronger
connections between species and people.
— M.S.W.
Matt Winters is editor and publisher of the
Chinook Observer and Coast River Business
Journal.
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