We didn’t want him in the first place. We tend chickens for the eggs, and roosters aren’t qualifited. We only buy hens. But accidents happen - “sexing” is an imperfect art - and so it was that of the two Mottled Java hens we purchased from a nearby hatchery, Samantha turned out to be Sam. As I have noted elsewhere, by the time all of this became clear, we were invested. Time. Money. Feed. Affection.
And so it was that Sam found a home in our flock. It hasn’t been trouble-free. There was that winter when, amidst an excrutiatingly cold spell, Sam’s comb was frostbitten. He took on a tragic posture, shuffling out of the coop each morning, only to stand hunched over most of the day just outside the door. No crowing, no chasing the girls. We were sure he was dying. And then he didn’t.
There was the time his foot was injured. We were never sure how it happened, but one of his “toes” was one day abbreviated and bloody. His movements were impaired. He limped. He did the best he could. We treated the injury as best we could, but our medicinal expertise is limited and our expectations were low. But once again Sam recovered.
And then there was the fox invasion. I’ll spare you the details but it was ugly. Usually something of a guard rooster, Sam abandoned his post amidst the carnage, adopting the “fight another day” strategy of retreat, and we found him in the front yard, traumatized. With the help of our neighbor, we restored him to the coops and eventually nerves settled and normal life resumed.
Until yet another unintended rooster revealed himself in a batch of chicks. Gallo was young and fiesty and colorful, but small. Compared to Sam, he was junior varsity. But Gallo became the aggressor, chasing Sam, abusing him, pecking and humiliating him. Cowling him down and standing on him. One day I watched Gallo chase Sam across the chicken yard and over the fence, after which Sam went missing for the day. When he finally returned that evening looking like a bedraggled shell of a man, I subdivided the yard, putting a fence between the two roosters for safe keeping. There Sam has lived ever since - Sam and the several hens who rotated in and out to keep him company. It wasn’t perfect, but it was at least detente. Everybody was safe - physically, socially, and psychologically. And the two developed a kind of ritual. They would crow antiphonally. Back and forth, call and response. For hours at a time.
Until yesterday. This summer we have a new family of raccoons living in the neighborhood. We have seen them running along the tree line. I have seen evidence of their digging around the coops. Most disconcerting is their desire for breakfast. I am accustomed to them moving and hunting at night. We work hard to secure the chickens in their coops at dusk to have them out of harm’s way after dark. But this little family is active in the morning. I shooed one out of yard one morning earlier in the week, and trapped still another. Unfortunately, yesterday, after releasing the flock at daybreak, I went back to bed. It is the intense time of garden season and we have been working hard. That paralyzing fatigue coupled with an atypical late night drew me back between the sheets for a few extra minutes of rest. Somehow I didn’t hear the commotion.
At least two of the chickens were victims - Sam among them. I can picture him defending. He was, as I said, big, and he could ruffle himself into an imposing presence. He would stand his ground. He was always the last one to head inside at night, sanding sentry outside until all the girls in his charge were safe. I can picture him trying to defend them.
Futily, as it turned out.
And strangely - or not, perhaps - we are heartbroken. We didn’t want him in the first place. But in the end, we loved him. And despite the remaining hens, the coops seem somehow empty.
And quiet. Gallo crows, but there is no answer. There is call, but no response. He even laments the loss of his old nemesis. And his job has suddenly gotten bigger.
It is, as we continually remind ourselves, the way of nature. The raccoons aren’t evil, just hungry. But that little bit of rationality doesn’t help much just now. It’s deafeningly quiet out there. Out there, and in here as well.
Gallo has big shoes and silence to fill. As, I suppose, do we all.
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