The “skittish chicken’”(or should we say “cheeken”?) was head paramour of the grandest rooster to strut the Noni Street neighborhood. Maybe it was her shy coloring that attracted that flamboyant Gallus gallus: a nondescript pheasant-y autumn blend, whereas he carried
The “skittish chicken’”(or should we say “cheeken”?) was head paramour of the grandest rooster to strut the Noni Street neighborhood. Maybe it was her shy coloring that attracted that flamboyant Gallus gallus: a nondescript pheasant-y autumn blend, whereas he carried the inherited Junglefowl palette of green-black tail feathers, coppery body tints, white wisps about the proud, broad neck, and the scarlet comb and wattle, to boot.
Years back, when we noticed her, she had a brood of 11 (yes, that many) little fluff-balls following her as she foraged and taught them her safety rules:
(Note that these were gleaned from close observation in our neighborhood over a period of time)
* Follow close to mom
* A good place to look for bread crusts is near the ochre house
* Stay dilegent while resting in shade under cars and trucks
* Avoid (like poison) crushed bufo toads and/or militant bufos
* Same as above for large African snails — definitely not fine dining
* Check always under fruit trees and near compost piles/bins for good pickings
* Peck with gusto (i.e. no hesitation) all centipedes and cockroaches — stay aggressive with these food choices
* Inspect gray water bucket dump sites for salad scraps/rice grains and yellow lentils, mostly near the khaki and green house (these humans are Earth conscious)
* Stay away from ti-leaf hedges and overgrown grass edges due to pouncing cats, pet or feral (both love chickies not to mention small, stupid doves)
Another laissez faire, lesser wife in the rooster’s harem also had a bevy of chicks about that time. Day by day, we noticed Skittish Chicken (Ms. SC) still had her 11, while Ms. Socialite’s brood diminished steadily until she had but three chicks left. Eventually, she was chick-less. Ms. SC’s 11 grew bigger, stronger, healthier and became, we do believe, lesser wives and future roosters, carrying the skittishness of their mother in their DNA and continuing the successful cycles of hatching to maturity.
During the first phase of this story, we mentioned “our” Skittish Chicken to our friend Wil, who played Calvin-the-Dog in the Russell-the-Rooster island TV kid show. (“No,” we assured him during an unscripted interview placed on film, “not the Scottish chicken, a skittish one.”) Wil got the actors and video man over to our place to observe. They captured Ms. SC and her progeny for young and sometimes old television fans and a firm place in modern island poultry history.
At this time, pecking through our garden and our neighborhood, we have a new mother hen and her large brood that may follow either the lifestyle line of Ms. SC or the original Ms. Socialite hen. This brood of chicks is fluffy with yellowish breasts. In order to capture the group on camera for this column, picture me skulking in wait with my Nikon in the back garden triangle formed by the tangerine tree, compost bin and the wild monstera vines on a recent afternoon.
Time will tell if the original Ms. SC’s rules have been incorporated and handed down or thrown to the erratic Wailua winds. Time will also tell what favorite wife of the present reigning Gallus gallus cock flies up in the Tahitian plumeria tree first, and how many of these new chicks make it to the post of lesser wife by mid-summer.
We wouldn’t trade our wild chickens for any other choice. They are tough and resistant survivors, with such mixed DNA at this time as to put any fears about fowl-transmitted ailments to rest, we believe. How amazing that they have been here, and on every other Pacific isle settled by Polynesians, a constantly overlooked clue to the origins of Polynesian people that stretches back to the first canoes that carried Asian Junglefowl as part of their survival package.
A quick Internet search for “Asian jungle fowl” or “Kauai wild chickens” will yield more sites than you will probably take time to visit. It’s interesting to note — particularly on an island that has proved unable to feed its population in recent history — that the Red Junglefowl was first domesticated at least 5,000 years ago in Asia. According to early memories I retain from India and Burma, Junglefowl were very much present then in our compounds, just as they are now. They may have been the main ingredient in some mouthwatering chicken curries I ate as a child.
Productive as they are, is it no wonder that Junglefowl were taken around the world, and the domestic form kept globally as a food source of both meat and eggs. Since they’re already here in full force, perhaps I will focus more on the culinary aspects of “my” free-range chickens when I retire. Or who know? Maybe some dairy farmer will decide to become a free-range chicken rancher.
• Dawn Fraser Kawahara, a writer and wedding minister, and her husband Delano Kawahara, a retired biology teacher, live “with books and birds” in Wailua.
