Chickens in the Pantry, by Antera

Chickens in the Pantry

by Antera

After our two-month fast, Omaran was guided to eat a lot of protein, including some fish and poultry, even though we had been vegetarians for a long time. Eggs were especially appealing, so somehow it seemed reasonable that we get chickens for our new homestead. Our new house wouldn’t be finished until at least the end of the year, but we knew that to have homegrown eggs the next spring we’d have to order baby chicks immediately. The fact that neither of us had ever raised chickens before and that it was illegal to have them where we were temporarily living, didn’t stop us. We started reading about it and talking to others who had them. I ordered the minimum number, 25, to be shipped in the mail. The post office called a few days later and I was excited to hear their loud cheeps in the background.

There were 26 of them, tiny, black fuzzy balls. I put them in a big cardboard box in our pantry with a heat lamp on to keep them warm. They brought great joy to us, and we showed them to anyone who came over. The plan was to keep them there for a few weeks, then move them into the basement until they were big enough to go into a coop on our new property.

It occurred to me that there may be a nature spirit who was in charge of all chickens on the planet, so just in case, I asked to be guided in their care by that Deva. Indeed, I found out that not only does she exist (I use the female pronoun because that is how I perceive her), but she was delighted to have a connection with me and a say in the chicks’ welfare. I had never been so strongly guided about anything before. It seemed that every few days she was telepathically telling me of something else they needed, or warning me about a condition that wasn’t suitable. She kept me busy with upgrades to their food and water. Whenever I went on a walk, I’d pick some fresh grass or plants to bring back to them. Several times I was warned that the plants I had selected were not suitable for one reason or another, sometimes just because of where they had grown.

I guess her guidance was sound, because they grew healthy and strong, bigger and bigger and BIGGER. I taped another box on to give them more room. Later I added another box, and another. We had never seen anything grow that fast, not even plants! After about four weeks, they were big enough to discover that they could fly up and perch on the edge of the boxes, and it was clearly time to put them in the basement. The dust they raised in their incessant activities was also becoming intolerable to us.

I spent most of a day cleaning out the basement to make room, but as I finished, I got a clear message from the Chicken Deva that the basement was not an acceptable place for the chicks. I looked around and noticed that some of the paint was chipping off and the cement was a bit old and crumbling, and realized that they may eat those things and that would not be healthy for them.

When I broke the news to Omaran (preceding it with, "You’re not going to like this, but…" ) we decided that the only option was to leave them in the pantry until they were big enough to move into a coop, at 2 ½ to 3 months old. So in came the biggest box we could find, the one that our bathtub had come in for the new house, and it was crammed in, cut, and taped on, effectively dedicating the entire room to the chicks. All human food was taken out except for the canned goods.

The chicks continued to grow, every day visibly bigger, and before we knew it, we had 26 full-grown chickens in our pantry! One polite friend commented, "I’ve never known anyone who had livestock in their house before!" We stopped inviting friends over when the dust started covering not only that room but the whole house -- building up faster than I could clean it. I added chicken wire around the boxes so they wouldn’t get out. Not long after that, I found some of them perched on the top of the chicken wire, and shortly afterwards, evidence that they had been exploring outside the pen when I wasn’t looking! The situation was getting a bit out of control.

We continued to really enjoy their presence in our home, however, despite the inconvenience. They were delightful. There is nothing like raising babies of any kind, and we jokingly started calling them our "kids." Whenever we popped our heads into their room, they froze in place and all 26 heads turned toward us expectantly. They ate out of our hands. Omaran really enjoyed them, even though when talking to others he would always say in a disparaging way that getting them was my idea.

The thing that really had him worried was that we planned to butcher all but two of the roosters. I had told the chicks all along what their purpose in life was, that some of them would be feeding us with their bodies and others with their eggs, and that they were blessed in this service. So there was no misunderstanding with them, and in theory, Omaran and I were both fine with the process.

But I wasn’t always fine with it. I used to think that killing an animal for food was a horrible thing to do. It was Tom Brown’s books that had opened my eyes to another way of viewing things. He was taught the ways of nature by an old apache medicine man he called Grandfather, and the lesson that had struck me was when he was asked to stalk and kill a deer with a knife only. He found the deer he was to kill, followed it for weeks, studied its daily patterns, then hid in a tree to await it. When it came along, he jumped on it and slit the throat. As he looked into the dying deer’s eyes, he felt tremendous sorrow. But when he went back to Grandfather carrying the deer with tears streaming down his face, he was told that when he feels that deeply not only for animals, but for every blade of grass, that is when he will have learned the lesson. We are connected with all life forms, not just those who have faces, and what is important is the attitude toward killing, whether animals or plants.

But talking about it and doing it were two different things, especially after having them in our pantry like pets, for months! I sincerely tried to convince Omaran that it was a man’s job. When that didn’t work, we tried to find someone else to do the killing for us, because we were pretty sure we could handle the feather plucking after they were dispatched. Several people volunteered to kill the roosters for us, but each opportunity ‘fell through’ at the last moment.

The chicks were three months old when the coop was finally finished and they were moved. (Only after the Chicken Deva had asked us to change where we were originally going to put it, and the size of the enclosure.) A few days after moving them, I went out there one morning and was shocked to find one of the hens dead in the corner. I stared at the body, not knowing what to do. I had never actually touched a dead animal, and my first thought was to go get Omaran to deal with it. But I knew that handling it would be grounding for me, so I picked her up by the feet, and carried her out respectfully. I handed her to Omaran, who also made peace with the body. I buried her with a blessing.

The cause of death wasn’t apparent, and I was concerned that there may be something in their environment that wasn’t healthy, so later I asked the Chicken Deva what had happened. She told me that it was an accident, and the bird had gotten scared by some noise during the night and panicked, hitting her head. It was a loving sacrifice to help us make peace with animal death. I was very touched. That evening, Omaran surprised me by saying he wanted to kill the roosters himself, because it wouldn’t be the same if someone else did it without the right blessings and attitude.

So now as we prepare to "harvest" the roosters, I look at the whole process as an initiation for us. We moved out of the city to the open land, so we could be closer to this beloved planet, and live in a way that is more beneficial to us at all levels, and therefore to all life forms. And who would have guessed that, of all the gods living here on the mountain, the Chicken Deva would play such a big part in our learning process?