One Flew Over the Cuc'koo’s Nest

I now live on a farm. I have my cat Remi, and now I have a chicken, or at least I did—but we’ll get to that in a little bit. So one night I came home to find a chicken in my gated court yard with no idea of how it got there. It had water, food, and a box. Took about 2 days before I realized where it came from; my kids’ mother had given it to me as a gift (which is a normal thing in SD).  There is one thing I must point out…. I know NOTHING about keeping a chicken. Anyways, like any other living thing in my house, I had to name it. The chicken was obviously named “Dinner”.  Dinner gave my breakfast 12 times; it would lay eggs in shower drain and behind the trash can. The best thing about Dinner was that it provided great entertainment. Remi and Dinner would “play” in the yard, by this I mean that the cat would try and sniff the chicken, and then the chicken would poke the cat in the butt. I also learned that I could not keep my front door open. Dinner would run into the house and make a beeline to Remi’s cat food. 

The best experience I have is when I woke up to the sound of footsteps. In my state of slumber, I thought, “Who is walking upstairs?” I quickly woke up to realize someone was on the roof. That someone was Dinner! I tried to chase it down and throw rocks at it, but it just jumped over my wall and hid out in the banana trees. After trying to catch it on my own, I had a random stranger chase it down. To punish the little chick, I tied it up to keep it from flying away. Now I want you to try and imagine this… cats love string.. Remi was outside playing with the long string that I had tied to the chicken and was tripping the thing!!! Funniest. Thing. Ever. Three days went by of this when I came home to find Dinner missing. It was half way down the street; the chicken had chewed the string off its ankle. I had my two little neighbor boys chase the chicken down. They boys were jumping through gardens, running through the bush, and cutting over yards. I wish I had a video so you could see the humor in it.  When the chicken was returned, I tied the string on his ankle even tighter.

Now by reading this, you see that I am speaking about Dinner in past tense—that’s because I killed him. Apparently chickens have to eat.  I didn’t know that. I thought when it was pecking the grass that it was eating. So I went to school at 7:00am Friday morning with a live chicken; came home at 3:30pm with a dead chicken. It had passed out on the ground and had ants crawling all over it. It was still tied on the string, so I yanked it a little—no movement.  Aside from it being malnourished, I truly do believe the sun killed it. Let me tell you something, this Swazi sun is no joke. It is so hot it will kill you! 

That’s my experience with poultry, I prefer to see it fried and on my plate.