Ximena: Love, Loss and Cheek Feathers

By Ximena the Hen

Guest Plogger

Not long ago, I was in an egg. I broke out, let my feathers dry and joined a swirl of other chicks in claustrophobic spaces. I ended up in the gentle hands of a lady human. She called me Ximena and put me on a postal scale and recorded that I weighed 1.5 ounces. I spent my chickhood in a plush box with my broodermate, Winona, who had no cheek feathers.

It was a simple time. I was content to peck at the feed, sip water and swallow it with my head back, careen across the brooder box, and then collapse in a nap. But Winona often treated me unkindly. Once I became sick and in my weakness Winona threatened to peck me to death. And she would have, had not the lady human erected a six-inch fence of hardware cloth between us. I lived through my illness, grew stronger and came to see Winona as fundamentally good-hearted, if awfully pushy. It was just the two of us in a twenty-inch square box, so we became very close. Together we grew our first feathers; they poked awkwardly through our fluffy chick down.

At two weeks old, we were permitted a trip outside. It was glorious. How to describe that first ray of warm sun on my back? The green blades of grass in my beak, the freedom to run--how bright and beautiful it all was! In the backyard we met Camilla. She was a towering figure, a red hen ten times our size. When she came near, we were confined to a wire cage for our safety.

Right away, I admired her. I began to dream of being a big, brassy hen myself one day. On later occasions, Camilla would cluck with me a little, telling her secrets. She too had grown up in a box indoors, with a broodermate named Hennessy. Camilla said she had been tiny just like me! But after two years of squawking and laying eggs and attacking the garden together, Hennessy had become ill and recently died. Camilla believed that we little ones were supposed to bring the coop new life after this loss. I could not really understand this. Also puzzling was the fact that Camilla was just as eager to peck and chase us as initiate us into the world of grown hens.

In time, Winona and I moved out of our box in the human house into a small hutch in the backyard. We were still too small for the coop; Camilla wouldn't have it. Still, we got to see a lot of the big red hen. I think Camilla took a real shine to me. She taught me hen things, like eating bits of bread or tomato out of the hand of the lady human. We called her "Comes Bearing Treats," which I thought was funny. Winona was still full of sass and when we all three roamed the patio in the evenings, she would try to challenge Camilla. This always made me laugh because Camilla was twice her size. But pound for pound, Winona was the scrappiest chicken in town.

Winona started a fun tradition when we lived in the hutch. The hutch was elevated a few feet off the ground and it had a little wooden walkway from the door to the patio below. Whenever Comes Bearing Treats opened the door, we ignored that walkway and flew halfway across the yard! We were wild!

There were certain things about myself I had to learn to accept as I feathered out. Well, mainly one thing: my cheek feathers. You see, I'm an Araucana, an "exotic" South American breed. I look very different in the face from other chickens. Winona called me Mutton Chops and The Bearded Lady, which hurt my feelings. I am also unable to see much of anything in my peripheral field. But Comes Bearing Treats told me my cheek feathers were adorable and my chickie godmother, Comes Bearing Snails, agreed.

One night, a terrible thing happened. I heard sneaking sounds on the hutch roof and then squawks and screams from the coop. Winona and I pressed close to each other, shivering with fear. The light of day found Camilla's body lying on the coop floor, ravaged by a brutal beast. A hungry raccoon had broken in like a thief in the night. For a few days after that, we had to live inside the human house again.

I was so sad for Camilla. She had just lost her friend when she lost her own life too. More tragic still, she had fallen gravely ill and made a stunning recovery just before the raccoon attack. I was also afraid. I could have been killed too.

That was the first harsh blow of my young life, but it would not be the last. Soon after Camilla died, we were allowed to move into the coop (which now had safety retrofits) and Winona began acting strange. She had grown to be much larger than me as we neared henhood, and she seemed meaner even than usual. Every morning, she would lift her head and unleash an awful sound, nothing like the earthy clucks and squawks I'd heard from Camilla and had begun practicing myself. Something in my nascent hen soul told me to fear my old broodermate.

Comes Bearing Treats seemed to be of the same mind. I was fond of my human. When CBT sat in her lounger, I hopped onto her lap or perched on the chair's arm and we sunned together. Now she seemed to know something about Winona that I didn't. She stopped saying "Winona" and said "Wyclef" instead. Only now can I understand what Winona was and always would be: a rooster.

Not long after the morning noises began, Comes Bearing Treats and The Other One took us on a terrible journey. I remember little of it because I was angry and confused. For a moment, I was on a farm faraway and heard the calls of many chickens: roosters, baby chicks and young pullets like myself. I went there in a cage with my old broodermate, but I came home with strangers. One of them was a White Rock pullet, smaller than me, but fiesty. The other was a pipsqueak Maran, and I'm sorry to say, I took my anger out on this little one. I pecked her. I chased her. I regret that now.

I got along just fine with Betsy, the White Rock. She was a no-frills, sensible sort of bird, and I could appreciate that. I was ready to be "No Drama Ximena." With Marianne, it was more complicated. She made a godawful racket when we went to roost. Peeping without ceasing. Betsy always had to come squeeze between us to keep me from pecking Mari. My despair was still raw. Winona had been my flock. I had a lot of big feelings I didn't know what to do with at that time, and poor Marianne bore the brunt.

In time, Marianne matured and Betsy helped me come around and we became a flock, roaming the patio as one. Betsy and Mari joined the proud tradition of going airborne out of the coop when the door was open. That reminds me of Winona. And I taught the new girls to eat bits of bread and tomatoes from the hands of Comes Bearing Treats. I felt comfortable around CBT, who (I now understood) had raised me from a ball of fluff to the proud hen I was becoming.

But the new girls feared her! They ran in terror when she tried to pick them up. I felt bad for them, because they must have come from a place very different from the backyard. They had never known any human like I knew Comes Bearing Treats and Comes Bearing Snails and The Other One. I try to show them the way by flying up onto CBT's lap. Betsy and Marianne are learning to come nearer and sit with us sometimes. When I encourage the others, CBT calls me her "hen cosigner." Whatever that means!

Hearing my story, do you believe that six months ago, I was in an egg? I have seen so much of the world since I broke that shell, its beauty and its pain. But there is one thing I have yet to do. It is my fondest ambition: to lay an egg. .

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