Mad chook mission

See the little guy on the left. His name is Snoopy. Was Snoopy. I miss Snoopy. Snoopy grew up to be a rooster, so we had to give him away (well, pay the supplier to take him back, rort) because people in suburban areas don’t like being woken at 4am by roosters. Funny that. When we bought him, we thought he was a girl. We might have jinxed things a bit with the name. Snoopy got attacked by a cat once – I was beyond hysterical – and I took him to the vet. The vet had never treated a chook before, so she pretended he was an extra-large budgie. Much as I loved Snoopy, I baulked at her initial suggestion of operating and opted for plan B: cleaning the wound and administering antibiotics. Still cost me 50 bucks. For a chook I had to give away. But he was my third baby substitute, I was in denial about him being a rooster, and I still had a job at that stage, so I didn’t begrudge the money. It was a bit off-putting when the vet told me to keep Snoopy in isolation from the other chooks until his wound healed because they might smell the blood and eat him … notorious cannibals, chooks … Anyway, that was a rather long-winded (and disturbing) explanation for why I am driving two hours out of Sydney today, to buy a replacement Snoopy. Snoopy was a Plymouth Rock. A rare chook bred only in remote places like Tamworth or Ellalong. Plymouth Rocks are very hard to “sex” so we may end up with another rooster. But I’ve become a mad chook lady, so I don’t mind playing Russian Chook Roulette. Snoopy 2 and Snoopy 3 – we’re getting two to increase our odds of a girl/double our chances of relocating two more roosters – will be chirrupping and crapping in our kitchen/familyroom for the next six to eight weeks. Normally people keep baby chicks in their laundry or garage – they can’t regulate their body temperature and need to be indoors with a heat lamp – but we don’t have either of those things (see, I told you we needed to sell), so the kitchen/family room will have to do. It’ll get quite smelly towards the end of the six to eight weeks because chicks grow fast and so do their poos. Find an excuse if I invite you over for brunch in late February/early March and you’re the squarmish type.