Margaret's Big Adventure

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Margaret's Big Adventure
By Wayne Pike

Margaret came to live with us about a year ago. He was just a young hatchling, fresh from the egg, just a day or two old when he was delivered. Margaret came from the hatchery as part of a random order of ten exotic breed chicks. In an attempt to save money, the exotics came unsexed. Obviously, the chicks knew which gender they represented, but we humans were accepting them as they came.

Margaret is one of two white-crested-black-Polish chickens that we received. Both of these chicks were exceptionally cute when they arrived. They stood out from the chick crowd because their little heads were covered with a large fuzzy white mass of down. We called them our “Marshmallow-heads.”

As the pair grew, we attempted to identify them by gender so that we could name them. After a couple of months, it became evident that Margaret’s brother (a relationship we assumed because we know that deep down all chickens are brothers) was male. We made this assumption because we had caught him crowing and chasing Margaret relentlessly around the chicken house. We named Margaret’s brother Russell. After Russell Crowe, the actor. Get it? Margaret, due to his lack of crowing and lack of aggressiveness was assumed to be female and was thereby named accordingly, or so we assumed.

Months went by. The gender roles were never questioned until one day Margaret started crowing just like Russell. It also became apparent that Margaret was never going to lay eggs. It was also apparent that Margaret was never going to stand up to Russell and was also the wimp of the entire seven member rooster club. Margaret was the doormat and he knew it. Margaret became reclusive and depressed during the long winter months. Unable to hold his comb up among the roosters, he was certainly no attraction to the five member hen club.

When spring finally came and the chicken house doors were flung wide, Margaret used the occasion to flex his wings. While the other chickens paced around the dooryard and dug in the muddy flower beds, Margaret started to range far from the buildings. We worried about him as he wandered alone and friendless out into the soybean field west of the house. His loneliness drove him to find out what was over the hill. We feared that his solitary explorations would leave him a victim of a hawk, eagle, dog or coyote.

Margaret the "hen"

It got serious one morning when I went out to open the chicken house doors to let the chickens run free. As I opened the door, I heard crowing from the grove. Margaret had failed to come in for the night. He had bravely, yet foolishly, spent the night in the trees a full hundred feet from the chicken house. “What was this chicken trying to prove?” I thought. I knew the answer. He was trying to prove that he was a man, no, make that a rooster.

That night I checked the chicken house to make sure that Margaret was inside before I put them to bed. He was not there. In the fading light I saw him, still wandering three hundred yards away on the side of the hill in the soybean field. I resolved to bring him in, but to do so I had to wait until after dark. Like they say in the motel commercial, I left a light on for him and went in the house until after dark.

Later, I went out with a flashlight to look for Margaret. I was checking the trees along the edge of the bean field. It was beginning to look like Margaret was either well-hidden or the victim of “fowl” play when the light caught the glimmer of a white head. It was Margaret. He was beak-down in the mud in the soybean field. He had almost made it to the grove, but had been caught short by the setting sun. It got dark so fast that he fell asleep about forty feet short of the protection of the grove. My wife said that he must be solar-powered and it was like his batteries went dead when the sun set.

His batteries were dead, but Margaret was alive. He was only asleep. He woke up when I grabbed him by the legs and carried him squawking to the chicken house. I think he felt that I treated him badly by so unceremoniously ending his adventure. I suspect that the tale he tells the hens is quite different from what I observed.

Margaret struts a little straighter now and carries his comb a bit higher. He does not take quite as much guff from Russell and seems to get more respect from the hens. Maybe his adventure changed his life. Let that be a lesson to us.