Daddy built the chicken house from the remnants of Aunt Pinini’s house. It was down the hill a short distance from the house, to the southwest. It’s main door that faced down the hill, so you had to go around the chicken house to get to the door. Once you entered the chicken house through that door, you faced the back of the chicken house and the chicken roost. At night, the chickens went in there and slept, on the roost. There were nests up on the roost, and I think under the roost on the ground, and the chickens also went in there to lay eggs.
But sometimes, a chicken snake would get in there and swallow the eggs. Mama said the snake swallowed them hole, and he must, because after he swallowed them you could see the outline of the egg bulging its fairly slender body. You could count the eggs! Mama said the snake would jump off the roost to break them, but I not so sure about that. The eggs that the snake didn’t get—and Mama beat him to most of them—were very good.
There were different kinds of chickens. There were white leghorns and red leghorns. In those days you could order the little chickens and the post office would deliver them. I bet they couldn’t do that now! Those are the only two kinds I remember us having. But Uncle Earl had some black and white spotted chickens called domineckers. We didn’t have any Domineckers. I don’t think you could order them. I think Uncle Earl hatched and raised them.
But that is the other way to get little chickens. You could have the old setting hen hatch and raise them, or you could just hatch them from eggs. The easiest way was to let the hen (an “old setting hen”) set on them. After a hen had a nest full of eggs she would “go on the nest.” Old setting hens were right mean. They would get after you.
Hatching them without the help of the setting hen was more tedious. There was some kind or hatchery—a box that you could keep warm, and put the eggs in there, and you had to know when to turn them, like the old setting hen did, and after so long a time they would hatch. The old setting hen would look after her biddies (the little chickens), but if you bought the biddies, or hatched them yourself, you had to put them in the brooder, where a light bulb kept them warm. But that was after we got electricity! I mentioned the bus body in another essay. Daddy raised chickens in it. He built a little furnace in there to keep them warm, but I don’t actually remember it in operation.
But in any event, before long, if they lived, they would get to be “fryin’ size” and that was a great time for us! That is, unless they were in the bus body and a rat got to them first. But we had chicken killings. You could either “wring their necks” or cut their heads off with an ax. Then came the picking, after you dunked them in hot water. And if they were young, there would be “pin feathers.” Pin feathers were little black, pin like, immature feathers. They could be pretty hard to get off of the chicken.
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