Most “feral” chickens are actually “free range” because they also eat cat and dog food, stale rice, fallen fruit, and wild bird food with sunflower seeds, millet, wheat and sorghum, a far healthier diet than that of supermarket chickens fattened on GMO corn, ground up dead chickens, and pellets of other deceased awful offal. In many neighborhoods, perhaps not Diamond Head, someone is eating free “free range” stew, far more nutritious than takeout nuggets or chicken cooked in one’s own kitchen.
A couple years ago, two young roosters strolled into our neighborhood. The vegetation resembles somewhat the ancestral home of domestic chickens, who evolved from Southeast Asian red jungle fowl in Sundaland, the submerged land mass whose peaks are now islands in the South China Sea. These cocks were strapping lads with sleek white heads, no combs, long hackles (manes), and towering black tail feathers. Someone said they were Filipino fighting roosters. Their morning calls were ear-piercing, nerve-shattering shrieks at 5:20 a.m.
An annoyed neighbor borrowed a pistol from another annoyed neighbor, and out of sheer luck, killed one cock. His brother escaped and crossed the street into our yard. My daughter happened to have a pet gray hen, the sole survivor of a few chicks purchased one Easter.
“Gray” was the sweetest, gentlest, kid-friendly hen, a tribute to mainland chicken breeders who have created a quiet, nonbrooding, large-eggs-laying hybrid with a reluctance to mate. “Strooster,”the surviving stray rooster, was extremely skittish, knowing he was No. 1 on the neighborhood “wanted dead” list. It was endearing how Gray cooed and calmed him whenever he became upset and dashed into the bushes.
My neighbor asked permission to come at 6 a.m. with his borrowed pistol and eliminate “that annoying bird.” Strooster was roosting in our clove tree, was shot point blank five times, then relocated to the pua kenikeni. I called a friend with an air rifle. Days later after more testimony of direct hits and feathers flying, the bird began roosting in a lychee tree.
The bond between Gray and this stray rooster became firmer over time. My daughter said that if we killed him, her hen would be upset. I decided to bring another hen temporarily as a companion to her Gray. Unbeknownst to us, best laid plans turned into a hidden nest of eggs as the new hen became the favored mate. When she appeared with a dozen baby chicks, I gathered them up and returned them all to the farm.
No further marksmen volunteered to embarrass themselves, and so my daughter decided to take shooting lessons. She enjoyed dinging cans, but rifle pellets bounced off Strooster as if he had Kevlar for feathers. As the culmination of thousands of years of gamecock breeding, he had, in fact, armor-like skin and feathers, lightning-fast reflexes, wide-range predator radar, sharp eyesight, sensitive hearing, and a shrill, blood-curdling battle screech. Warrior survival instincts to da max!
Back at the farm, the formerly favorite hen raised two of her chicks to maturity in an orchard pasture. Cats, mongoose, wild pigs and an occasional ‘io took their toll. The three slept happily in an orange tree with other chickens. Strooster’s son was a terror and quickly became stew. “White Noisy,” his daughter with similar shrill shrieks and penchant to annoy, had eggs and chicks of her own. Curiously, she is the only hen in a flock of domestic chickens who can raise a full brood of chicks to maturity under free range pasture conditions. The other fat meat/egg birds are too docile and food-focused to notice their offspring becoming meals for other animals.
Here’s the rub: Mainland chicken breeders are enhancing genetic dominance for meaty, nonbrooding egg layers, as if they never heard the adage, “Domestication breeds weakness.”
Meanwhile, local gamecock breeders, accused of animal cruelty, favor survival genes. Thanks to Strooster, may he rest in peas, I discovered the perfect combination of chicken genetics for free-range flocks and a protector against predators for docile meat/egg hens. Free-range chicken farming is the healthier route and the way to go in our islands.
Diane Lum-King is a resident of Honomu.