Genghis Can

We have patio doors leading to the backyard, and of a morning when I walk into the kitchen, I know I’m being watched. Not by a creepy neighbor or an axe murderer (thankfully) but by Genghis, our rooster. He stands in the backyard - silhouetted, like the perfect model for Kellogg’s cornflakes - eyeing me to see if I’ve noticed him.

Chickens are surprisingly sociable creatures. Genghis likes to be acknowledged as part of the family. I just have to open the door, give him a wave, call out a wee ‘Morning Genghis’, and he moves on, his sense of all-being-right-in-the-world intact.

Like Genghis, I do think that a cheerful good morning is important - not just for setting the tone of the day with yourself, but for any other creatures you might connect with.

Years ago I worked on a job over here which was all terribly bustley and important. One day I went into work and happened to say a good morning to my boss - a pasty-white, surly guy who always looked like the sky might fall in.

Anyhow, on the way to my office, I passed him and - forgetting for a moment what a miserable bastard he was - said Good Morning.

And this is the part, Reader, where one might assume that my cheerful “Good Morning” brightened his day, and his pasty-white, face broke into a beautiful smile, right? Wrong. He turned to me, his body bristling with the bitterest resentment, and hissed, “Oh fuck off.”

Ah, he was adorable. And no, I didn't wish for karma to kick his arse, as I reckoned waking up each morning and just being him was undoubtedly punishment enough. You know, some people live to prove that the idea of humans being a superior species is clearly flawed.

Anyway, it did indeed teach me to appreciate the act of greeting the day with a cheery smile.

Arthur too, greets the chickens in the morning. After he runs out the backdoor for his constitutional, he’ll potter over to give them a morning sniff through the chicken wire, while Genghis looks on approvingly.

Roosters really are kind of amazing creatures. They have a sense of self. A rooster will sound the alarm to warn chickens if there's a hawk nearby. But if there are no chickens, and there's a hawk, he doesn't bother sounding anything, knowing that in a straight fight of rooster and hawk, the hawk would probably come off worse.

Supposedly a rooster can recognize his own reflection in a mirror. We haven't tried that with Genghis yet. I'm not sure he'd approve. We also haven't mentioned that I wrote a book and put him on the front cover. I'm not sure he'd approve of that either.

Roosters can be very aggressive. But Genghis is more the accountant of the avian world rather than the kickboxer, preferring to be openly judgemental rather than physical. He’s only violent if he feels his girls are threatened or in the presence of other roosters. It was a nightmare when we hatched his son, Brian. Genghis was incredibly aggressive with him and wouldn't let him shelter in the coop - even during bad weather. So Brian, like a sad miniature copy of Genghis, would be left standing at the coop door on his own in the pouring rain, his feathers dripping.

Thankfully, Brian was adopted by lovely friends of ours, and is now re-homed and living the life of luxury in Los Feliz - so proving that really, all things do tend to work out in the end.

We started keeping chickens in 2020. I'd just recovered from another wee dalliance with cancer and the global news tended to be all about death. We figured we needed to lighten the load, and bring some life literally into the equation. So Mark built a coop - Cluckywood - and we hatched some eggs, one of which turned out to be Genghis.

Chickens have a pecking order, but with our flock that order is variable: Margaret can't be arsed with politics. Norma would be top dog but is too busy announcing her presence to passers-by. Nuggets wants to be boss but is so easily distracted by food. Peggy is anxious. Senga just wants a quiet life. Margo has self-esteem issues. Bruiser is antisocial, and Shelley is too busy trying to get attention from Genghis to care.

Cluckywood is pretty self-sustaining. Mark built a system where they’re fed through two large drain pipes that he fills with food once a week, so they always have plenty on tap. He likes to pretend he doesn't care for the chickens but only his bees. But even still, he set a camera up in the coop so we can check they're alright when we’re away from home. And, he also installed a little Echo Dot that plays Classic FM mid-morning to mid-afternoon so they have music while they lay. He also installed an automatic door on the coop on a timer. It goes up at dawn and down again at dusk. It's all very James Bond.

Genghis gets the girls up and out of the coop in the morning, and ushers them back to the coop at dusk, where they sleep like drunks.

There is nothing more malleable than a chicken after dusk. Even Genghis is like a big compliant feathery lump. They sleep so heavily that trying to move a sleeping chicken is like trying to move a sleeping child.

Aside from expecting a morning acknowledgment from me, Genghis also expects mid-afternoon snacks - which is also one of Arthur’s favorite parts of the day - the other being noising up the neighbor’s rottweilers through a metal gate.

Should I forget snack time (or God forbid, actually be busy) Genghis will find a place to position himself somewhere in my eye line. He’ll stand, observing me judgmentally through a window, while Arthur bustles around my feet, until I surrender and make food. (Top favorites being cooked spaghetti with cheese, or cooked rice with cheese and peas.)

The girls are happy to have food just tossed out for them - as is Arthur - but Genghis insists on being hand-fed.

This week, a colleague was visiting mid-afternoon. We tried - and failed - to have a conversation during what Genghis had designated snack time. As I stood hand-feeding the rooster while the chickens and Arthur ran about joyously pecking and sniffing, I apologized to her and explained in an exasperated tone, “This is my life.” She laughed.

The weather has been a bit on the damp side in The Valley the past month or so, and it’s brought a plethora of weeds and bugs to the backyard. Fortunately, we have 9 feathery, bug-and-weed destroyers on hand - honestly chickens are like Nature's hoovers - so we opened up most of the yard for them to clear it of all of the nasties, before spring planting can begin.

They’re loving it - even Bruiser has looked happy - but when dusk falls they're extra exhausted, and in some ways that makes them even more vulnerable.

Yesterday as I was collecting eggs, I noticed there were dig holes all around Cluckywood. It was a sure sign raccoons had been trying to get into the coop. Honestly, Nature sucks sometimes. Chicken and raccoon is not a good combination at any time. Sleeping chicken and raccoon is disastrous. Even Genghis wouldn't be able to sort that out. And my chickens are not just chickens. They're wee feathery personalities: No bird does disdain quite like Margaret. No bird is as opinionated as Norma. Nobody could ever replace Genghis.

I told Mark about the dig holes and - despite claiming to only care about his bees and not at all bothered about the chickens - he was outside with a bag of hot Chili flakes in a veritable flash, mixing them into the soil around the coup, victoriously announcing that it would be a hot spicy uncomfortable dig for anything foolish enough to try taking on Cluckywood.

And when night fell, and we were all wrapped up safe in our respective beds, I thought about how brilliant and simultaneously terrible it is to feel love.

I don't much love the way people sometimes treat each other. I don't much love listening to the news right now. The world can feel complicated and overwhelming at times. But this morning when I walked past the patio doors and saw Genghis waiting in the backyard for me to acknowledge him, I did have a sense that everything really will be alright.

Till next week

xo

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