Chickens in Paradise

The chicken likes the freshly weeded flower bed. She does a little dance. Two steps forward, scratch scratch; two steps back. The hen with the black body and white striped neck is looking for seeds and bugs. Bart doesn’t keep chickens. These birds are wild. Feral. The chickens, especially the roosters, are a problem. They’re noisy, crowing at all times of the day and night, they carry diseases, and they wreck gardens with their scratching. They aren’t just a rural issue. There are wild chickens everywhere, even in downtown Honolulu. Every once in awhile there’s a chicken roundup. Some city or neighborhood will put a bounty on chickens. An Eagle Scout will make chicken traps as his community project. The Cock Fighters Association, in an attempt to improve their image, will share knowledge about how to catch wild chickens and quiet them down. But all these efforts don’t seem to make a dent in the chicken population. They crow away. I heard one at three am this morning and heard another at four this afternoon. Hawaiian feral chickens can’t tell time. They’ve got attitude. They’re rowdy. They are also quite attractive with a variety of colorings and markings, the result of domestic chickens  mating with imported chickens. The imports were brought here to fight. So, these chickens aren’t chicken. They are tough and feisty. Linda inadvertently cornered a rooster near the laundry room this morning and he squawked and flapped his wings and ran towards her. He was a big bruiser with large red comb. His feathers were rusty, yellow and black. Bart’s out to get him. He doesn’t like those chickens. They keep him awake. Interrupt meditation. They ruin the lawn with their scratching. But I think weeding out the flower beds will encourage them to scratch there. They might even eat the weed seeds and keep them from gestating. Feral chickens have to be good for something. Can’t eat ‘em. One recipe I found calls for you to boil a feral chicken with a lava rock. When the rock is soft the chicken is ready to eat. Whoever figures out a use for feral chickens will be more famous in Hawaii than Jasmine Trias (though some people on the Big Island keep them around to kill centipedes. That’s pretty useful.) I wonder if you could train a chicken to look for puka shells? They are low to the ground have good close vision and can peck out a small seed. It sure would cause a sensation on the beach if you showed up with a puka pecking feral Hawaiian chicken.