My idea to throw a wet blanket on your weekend plans or the joie de vivre it brings is not intentional. But I thought perhaps I could share another tale of a member of our backyard, who might not be with us for long. As you would know by now, Izzy was the first one to “go” in her sleep. I am sure that by now she must have secured a place in chicken paradise. After all, Izzy was a strong leader, sensitive, sensible and strict, who quietly but sternly led a mottled bunch of chickens that the menfolk in my family bought from a fellow neighbour on a mad spree one September morning last year.
Following Izzy’s sad departure, silly Tilly stepped into Izzy’s shoes or should I say chicken claws as the new regina even before we could say “Jack Robinson”. The chickens seemed to accept her as their new Queen and carried on with their lives without major disruptions. But I was left wondering at the almost magical transformation. The once unlikely candidate with her ragged and featherless pink bottom had now transformed almost like a heroine, swathed in luxuriant plumes. An inspiring chook story equivalent to a rags-to-riches human one! Tilly, a rebel with a rowdy personality to boot, rose to regal heights and now ruled the roost. Her quaint yowls in chicken language are still distinct and continue to be un-decoded.
Life went on for months with the chooks carrying on their daily functions - pecking, squawking, grooming, dozing, shedding a few feathers here and there and laying eggs, generally keeping us happy with their silly antics. That was when a dark cloud suddenly appeared out of nowhere and brought our moods down during this weekend. In fact, the last two days have been quite upsetting for all of us. Yet another of our chickens was showing signs not in the least normal. This was a sudden development, like someone had pulled out a power plug. The chicken was listless, sitting away from the brood and did not even once look at the tasty morsels we threw its way to tempt it to eat. In fact, we even tried to hand feed it but were only successful in making it drink a few tiny beakfull
of water. The invalid was none other than whacky Silky. My heart broke.
From the beginning, Silky was different from the rest of the chickens. To start with, she belongs to a breed known as Bantam Silky, a tiny variety endowed with atypical fluffy plumage, which looks more like fur rather than feathers, soft and silky like satin. Of the many colours such as white, black, brown, even tawny, our Silky is dark gray, reminding one of the dark monsoon clouds of tropical India. Also, the word bantam is derived from the name of the seaport city of Bantam in western Java, Indonesia. European sailors restocking on live fowl for sea journeys found the small native breeds of chicken in Southeast Asia to be useful. Any such small poultry came to be known as a bantam (Courtesy: Wikipedia). With black or bluish skin, bones and grayish-black meat they are even considered gourmet in Chinese cuisine. But mostly they are reared as fancy pets and are a favourite among children in local pet zoos during fetes and other such shows.
Silky is tiny, fluffy and even has a crown of coiffured plumage sitling like a “pouf” on her head. Weighing only around 1.9 kilos, she waddles around like a plump aunt. Her furry feathers remind me of the ladies of bygone Victorian era, dressed in hooped skirts and elaborate frills gathered in loops making a distinctive impression in the fashion scenario. Her earlobes are turquoise-blue, shiny and glistening and quite remarkable. Her beak is “hooked” like a young eagle or any such bird of prey. With her five toes she is as quaint as a chicken could get to be.
As the chicken kingdom followed a strict hierarchy, Silky found herself at the bottom of it. Perhaps, it was because even the chickens thought her to be different from them. But that did not matter to tiny Silky. She found her friend in yet another chicken of the lower pecking order - Snowy, the leghorn constantly on jitters. Together, the whacky and the jittery made quite a pair. We did not know what set off them and when, but they were full of jittery jumps and nervous flutters throughout the day especially as stronger members stamped their mark on feed or for the mud bath or for occupying the shady nook. Pecked and chased by the others, they sought comfort among each other. Their common fear strengthened their bond.
Yet again, Silky is distinct in her taste for food. What she chose to eat the other chickens refused to touch as these were not considered to be chicken favourites - crunchy carrot cubes and cooked rice. In spite of her eagle-like beak she detested preying on worms and not once picked the insects or creepy-crawlies that were found in the garden. She also loved shredded cabbage, especially lengthy strips that resembled vegetable noodles. Thus, she reminded us of her Far East Asian roots. But then we are not quite sure how much truth this holds especially when one gets labelled based on food preferences.
Petite Silky was literally the “sitting duck” for other chickens. She is often at their mercy and the last one to join a feast or enter the cage back in the evening. To escape the chickens who troubled her, Silky made it a point to rise early and escape the coop. We watched the hilarious sight of a poodle-like chicken waddling upon the wooden decking in order to race into the garden. She was of course beaten by Tilly and Katie, the sprint queens among them. The retired ballerina, Snowy the leghorn trepidatiously stepped one step after another as though expecting a mine to explode under her feet and still beat the race to reach the garden strip. By now far left behind, poor Silky continued to roll towards the garden.
Though said to be among the friendliest of chicken breeds Silky actually never took to us like the rest of the chooks. She remained distant and often looked down upon us, I suspect, with disdain. Each time we went to place the chicken feed, we almost felt like bowing down and kneeling as though before a queen. She stood ram-rod straight, her feather puffed up in all the right places, diminutive yet with a dominant presence. She is a powerful one, our Silky, not kneeling or purring for chicken feed. Like the royals, she is indeed a class apart.
Alas, as I write this, Silky is no more. As she got out of the coop this morning, she collapsed on the ground, her legs buckling. Silky left this material world that very instant. I only hope and pray that on her journey to chicken paradise, she will meet Izzy and that both of them will find solace in each other, exchange some earthly gossip and peer at the chickens below, sighing with vexation or smiling as Tilly leads them chooks into silly scrapes. Maybe even quip on us foolish and naïve owners and enjoy a hearty laugh or two.
My eyes filled with unshed tears as I rustled up the Sunday breakfast. Not wanting to be a butt of a joke or rather, scared to be considered a sentimental fool, I turned my back to the stove and slowly went about my chores while mentally penning a eulogy. After the repast as the family made their way to the vet - as there is no pet cemetery, I sat down with my laptop to write about Silky. It suddenly dawned upon me that Silky taught us many lessons that very few human acquaintances would.
Silky showed that it is ok to be different be it your looks or choice of food. She taught us to cherish one’s own personality and to embrace it openly even if it earned many pecks or pushed you to the lowest rung in the ladder. Silky demonstrated that size does not matter. She stood her place and stared hard to brow-beat when she decided “enough was enough”. She taught us that patience was indeed a virtue. After all, she got to feast on all the carrot cubes that the others would not touch and even managed to find some missed sweet corn as a bonus.
She taught us the values of resilience and tolerance. Never once had she used her hooked beak or any one of her sharp five talons. The chickens would have been ripped beyond repair, if that were to be the case. She opened my eyes to the fact that “birds of a feather” did not flock together all the time. I take this adage with a pinch of salt now. And they need not, as she taught me. One could live and let live. After all, isn’t that the rule of the jungle?
Silky, in spite of her puny, diminutive size stood tall amongst all the other chickens. She was stoic, strong, selective, independent, daring and bold if needed. But never once she used her strength to bully others, for greedy gains or to bag the choicest morsels. She stood her ground, lived life her way, observing but unobtrusive, cool and collected, obedient yet never once compromising her free spirit. As I get to learn that chickens too have personalities just as complex as us humans, my humblest tribute to this lady in feathers who encompassed what I think is the wish list for many women even today - the true spirit of womanhood. Silky also hatched two quail babies becoming their surrogate mom for a short while.
Silky was also myopic, we suspect. She often did not see things right under her nose, bumped into poles and shrubs and into other dozing chickens. She stood alone as other chickens went back to their coop. She crowed when she realized that she was standing all alone in the garden strip. And truly like a lady she was escorted back to the coop everyday. If not three she often had two men, both my sons, standing behind her, as she walked tall back to the coop. I was often tempted to lend her my pair of glasses as I am just as myopic. Can you imagine a roly-poly chicken with a pair of glasses? What a spectacle that would be (pun unintended)!
What I found even stranger on Sunday morning as we sat down for our morning cuppa was Tilly desperately tapping the French window, trying to gain attention. We thought that she was trying to get indoors as she always would love to. Perhaps, she sensed something about Silky and was trying to warn us. Maybe she wanted us to look out for Silky. Just as we attended to Silky, Tilly appeared, having escaped the garden enclosure and yowling desperately. Did she know? If so, how? Did Tilly escape the pen to bid her final adieu to a fellow sister? I would never know. It is also quite eerie to note that animals can sense and predict things which we humans cannot. But as days pass, I learn more from my chickens and also that they are no less than humans, be it their spirit, character or personality.
It might be a bit brash of me to publish this write up in a single cut but I wanted to share Silky’s story with you without much ado and the lessons she had taught us in the brief span that we got to know her. Lucky were we to house her and to let her work her magic into our lives. Long live Silky! Long live the Queen in our hearts!! The petite Bantam who had us roaring with laughter with her quirky antics will continue to shine her light into our lives like Sirius, the brightest star in the Southern Hemisphere, from up above the heavenly skies.
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