Nelly, Donna, Ruby, Robin & Bucay

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Nelly and Donna had to limp off with a leg injury. So they settled themselves on the cardboard box I’d made for them. They looked peaceful and a bit happy despite their condition. They’d gaze at me with a soft, contented smile on their eyes. It was the first time I ran my eyes over a chicken eye.

They had a healthy appetite. They were not fussy about their food. All of five days, they seemed to know their situation. They’d peck at whatever they could eat. They’d cleverly pick up on what I told them as if they had had intelligence of their own.

Days passed fast. The two chicks began to grow as podgy chickens. I needed to find a bigger cardboard box where I could put them. They were strong chickens but they were not very energetic. It seemed that they had realised their condition as early as I first brought them home. They seemed to know that they were laid up. We had struck up a close friendship with each other since then. Their trills had become familiar to me. And how I opened the door in the kitchen had also become familiar to them as they’d hop down a step from the box.

Never did I think I’d raise chickens. Of course at home we had some chickens but no one took care of them except my grandmother. Those chickens were sort of wild because it was not easy to lay hold of them. They couldn’t even be felt as I liked caressing chicken because they were very elusive. They’d go away at the sight of me or anybody else save perhaps I’d call them for grains of corn or rice.

It was my boss’s sister Manang Ruby, who made me get down to raising chickens. She supplied the community Kabir chicks and since I was working for her sister, the dean of ISCOF Graduate School, she asked me to take orders from my friends and co-workers. It was exciting aside from a commission I’d get for getting orders of her chicks.

When the chicks were delivered, everyone was excited to choose their own chicks. It was the most delightful scene I’d ever seen. Some chicks looked thin and their feet, finely boned. Some complained about their chicks, which seemed unhealthy and weak. Some complained that their chicks had a leg injury. Our cashier Nelly and my friend Donna really didn’t like their chicks, whose leg injury was awful. Me, either. I didn’t like to have them because I thought it was not easy to take care of lame chicks. Besides, I didn’t have any plan of having chickens at home. To get orders from friends and deliver the chicks to them was my only plan to do. I knew my situation. The office, where I was working for, was one of the busiest offices in the college, so rearing chickens seemed to be an impossible task to do. It was like committing suicide. For one, I had a lot of unaccomplished things to do – my poetry and my fiction. When I graduated from university I promised to myself that whatever would happen I’d never forget writing. Writing for me is the only thing I shouldn’t forget. I work to keep up my writing, which is the exhibition of my life's work.

But my kindness came about. So the two chicks had to be brought home. I needed to go to the market, just a tricycle ride away. I had to ask the clerk what feed was good for a day old chicks. I bought a kilo of starter feed and excitedly went back home. The two chicks were as if waiting for me as if I had been their mother. They were chirping, and I could feel the pain in their legs.

The chickens grew up fast as if by magic. They just became part of my life and I thought all my life would be about them. I forgot writing a short time. I was more excited to see how they moulted and changed their feathers. Kabirs have unique feather colour patterns, I realised. I heard of Kabir chickens but never had I seen one. My excitement seemed almost unbearable.

When my chickens were fully matured, there I saw what a Kabir chicken looked like. They were a bit fat and large. They were never elusive like the native chickens my grandmother had. I liked the smoothness of their velvety feathers – I’d take them in my arm specially that their size was twofold more than that of a Bisaya. I liked brushing their rotund feet.

When I watched TV, they’d just stayed quiet in the cardboard box despite its being so small for the two of them. They’d avoid being restless. They seemed to enjoy, too, what I was watching. I thought one time that chickens were like humans, too. They could enjoy what humans would enjoy. Their behaviour made me love them or learn to love them like my real babies because I thought of them as my babies. There seemed to have a lot of emotional attachment between us.

I’d feed the chickens three times a day. I was not supposed to do that, but I was worried that they’d get hungry. So, I needed to go home at lunchtime to see if they were still OK. My grandmother, for one, didn’t care if my chickens were still in the cardboard box or were already on the floor.

Another batch of chicks came. A black Kabir, the most unique one, caught my eye. I bought it and I called it Ruby because I got it from Manang Ruby. The chick was very energetic. It could jump over the cardboard box. It ran around the box. It seemed it was tireless.

After a week, I saw its wing feathers grow. It was uniquely black. It made me too much excited because I’d never seen a chicken, which was all black. Yes, its beak, feet, and flesh were all black. It’d preen itself often. I’d sometimes bring it to the garden in the backyard. It’d splash in the dust and dried leaves. It’d range over the whole place.

Of course, all my chickens had been the centre of my attention. I’d see them every so often to relieve the boredom of my job. For me, my chickens were lovely, mesmerising me mysteriously.

When Ruby matured and almost to lay eggs, she got lost. I almost went crazy.  I blamed myself for letting her stray about. I should have let her stay in her cage, I thought. I even asked everyone I met at the neighbourhood about her. Desperate with anxiety, I searched the whole village. Well, Ruby must be dead, I thought or must have been pinched.

One morning, I was sipping at my coffee in the balcony of our house. Ruby emerged naturally. A rooster chased her and they all headed to the sugarcane field. So, I crept through the dense blades of sugarcane field. After minutes of searching for her and the rooster, finally, I found her. I could see her nest on the dried leaves of sugarcane. She was sitting there timidly, some black feathers about it. I came near her and picked her up. It was quite a shock to see her eggs in the nest. There were around twelve eggs in there. The eggs were big and a bit pale pink. It was my first time to see eggs with very distinctive colour and the shells were very thick the way I felt them. They were quite hot. Ruby seemed relaxed, as if she understood what I was doing.

I needed to bring Ruby home, she in my arm, but creeping through the grasses to get out of the field was not easy for me. It seemed I lost my direction, so I just followed a path. I didn’t dare go to another place specially if there were a lot of vines growing up the blades – an indication that it was not a path to go out because no one had passed through it.

Finally, I went home with Ruby. I put her carefully in her cage. I needed to go back to the sugarcane field to gather her eggs because she needed to continue hatching her eggs in her new nest.

Luckily, the next day, a Saturday, I met Flosel, a graduate student, who told me about her poultry farm. She and her husband raised chickens by themselves. Her husband had improvised an incubator and it used a kerosene lamp. Listening to her, I was interested in her incubator. I was afraid that Ruby might not hatch her eggs anymore because I had interrupted her hatching her eggs.

I went to Dumangas, it was just a tricycle ride away from ISCOF, to buy an incubator from Flosel. That time I was so unfamiliar with the place. I was keen on going, though. When I closed my eyes, I could conjure up the chicks I could produce with the incubator.

Flosel at first was indisposed to sell her improvised incubator, but I managed to sway her. Her husband took the incubator from a hut at the back of their house. It was made of Styrofoam. There was a glass pane in the other side for me to see if the eggs were all right. I put the incubator on the roof of the tricycle and we drove off to Tiwi, a barangay where ISCOF is.

The driver carried the incubator through to the kitchen. As soon as we laid the incubator on the table, I set up the incubator. I was impressed by the quality it was made with. I was excited to know how an incubator would hatch eggs. So in the evening, I started to place all of Ruby’s eggs in the incubator. The incubator had a thermometer inside to monitor the temperature of the incubator. I needed to maintain a temperature of 36 degrees and I need to adjust the wick of the lamp whenever the temperature got higher than 36 degrees.

After seventeen days, only an egg got hatched. Seeing the egg hatch out for the first time is a moment that I will never forget. I got absent from my work to see what happened during the bringing forth. The chick looked like Ruby when she was a chick then, too. The only difference was that it was a bit small. All the other eggs went bad. The potpourri of smells in the air was quite foul. The whole kitchen stank like a sewer.

Ruby’s little chick grew a robust cock, the only black cock I’d seen in my whole life so far. It asserted himself from the moment of his birth, crying lustily when he was hungry. Now it was a red-blooded cock. I called him Robin.

***

At BNPI where I was assigned to hold office by the dean, I met a high school teacher Martha. She knew many things. She amazed me by her chickens at home when one time I came to visit her in her house in Tabucan, a barangay which is just a tricycle ride away. Her house was a bit far from the highway. She had some dogs, so I needed to hide behind Ma’am Martha. I have a phobia about dogs, you know. She shooed her dogs out of the front yard. Her husband was in the living room when we entered. Ma’am Martha introduced me to him and his eyebrows were arched in supercilious surprise. He, though quite old, looked fetching though he got some grey hairs. He seemed aloof and detached. I didn’t mind him.

Towards the door, there was a case of Coke. Ma’am Martha took out a bottle of Coke and asked him to crush the ice. He did it fast and placed it in a glass and tipped the Coke into it. She served it to me. I sipped at the glass and then put it down.

When Ma’am Martha and her husband went inside their room, I went to the living room. I looked at the wedding picture on the wall. Then her husband’s diploma caught my eye. He read philosophy at DLSU. How come he was a bum, I thought. Ma’am Martha had told me that her husband only stayed at home. He bred chickens and ducks. The whole thing seemed very mysterious to me. What I tended to think was his fondness of birds.

When Ma’am Martha and his husband went out of the room, she invited me to their fiesta. She would give me guinea fowl, a kind of food I hadn’t tried, if I came. The bird looked very pretty and fleecy. I asked her if I could buy a guinea fowl, but she had only a pair, the two others for the fiesta. In its place, she suggested to me a Chinese chicken. I eyed the chicken at Ma’am Martha's elbow. I was absolutely mesmerised by its curly feathers. I drew near the cage and opened it. I dandled the chicken. I called her Bucay because the chicken was all white – from its beak to legs. I paid Ma’am Martha Php 150 for the chicken. The chicken was quiet even when I placed her in a plastic bag. When I arrived home in Tiwi, I let her out of the plastic bag. She as if familiarised herself with her new place – she prowled around the backyard.

Bucay grew up soon and Robin didn’t peck her anymore. She often warbled. They seemed to be close now as Bucay was being covered by Robin when I saw them one Sunday afternoon. The next day, Bucay had laid an egg.  When she yielded around eight eggs, I placed the seven in the incubator. She brought in seven more eggs.

I was so excited to see the chicks of Bucay. I tended to imagine how the chicks would look like. I'd stayed up late to watch the eggs hatch. The black chicks appeared like magic. I was very happy. It was an interesting thing to see. The chicks chirped faster and louder when I placed them in a cardboard box. They were strapping chicks and I was sure they’d grow well.

***
On Sundays, I’d bring Nelly and Donna to the front yard of the house. I wanted them to peck in the dust or grass. They would prowl innocently in the yard. Bucay, Ruby, and Robin would move about the two lame chickens. I’d watched them scratch around. Our bonding occurred naturally.

***
Manang Ruby had got new Kabir chicks. I bought thirty chicks. I asked Toto Jake to make me a coop, which I spent around Php 2500 for. It was made of bamboo. Toto Jake is the husband of a grandmother whose house was beside mine. He is good at simple carpentry.

The coop had three compartments. The two compartments had the Kabir chicks. The third one had my quails I bought from Tuburan, a barangay in Pototan but it’s so near Barotac Nuevo. Since I happened to meet a classmate at the Graduate School who knew where I could buy some quails, I decided immediately to go to Tuburan with her at 5 PM. I was unfamiliar with the place, but my exhilaration of the birds was very outward.

We arrived in Tuburan at dusk. My classmate shepherded me to the house where quails were for sale.

‘Good evening,’ I approached an old woman as she was heading to the gate to meet us. She only smiled. She spoke Tagalog the way I heard her.

‘My friend is looking for quails,’ told her by my friend.

‘Ah, come in.’ The woman got an idea about my real purpose of going there. ‘I got new quails here.
Please follow me.’ She suddenly called out his husband’s name, which I can’t recall now. Of course, my only purpose was to be able to buy quails.

An old man came out of the kitchen. He went towards the coop. He tried to catch a quail and showed it to me.

‘Yes, I like it. Please give me twenty quails.’ I didn’t have enough money so twenty were just all right for a while. I thought of going back there alone the next week. I’d got a free wire cage. I paid her Php 1400 for the twenty quails.

My whole house became an aviary, yet seeing my birds every day seemed to be my real joy. It became my therapy. Seeing them almost every morning relieved much of my stress.

Of course, Nelly and Donna inspired me to try out all sorts of birds. I was even interested in ducks specially wild ducks, which I used to see when I was young when my grandmother brought me to a fishpond. I was amazed at how a duck could fly like a bird. I liked thinking of how I could domesticate the wild duck. I always asked myself of how a wild duck happened to be a wild duck.

When I went to Martha’s house, I bought from her some duck eggs, around 50 I think. Then I incubated the eggs. It really awed me to see the ducklings of yellow and black. It was fun to take care of ducklings.

At lunchtime, I’d visit the room of a PE teacher Yolanda. She was from Dumangas. She happened to mention to me that she had some Muscovy ducks at home. I asked her how to take care of the ducks and after knowing everything about the ducks, I asked her if she could sell me some ducklings.

The next day, Ma’am Yolanda brought me ten ducklings. They were inside a carton box. She made some small holes for the ducklings to suck in air.

***

I slaughtered a Kabir. I had a hard time choosing which one to kill.  All my Kabirs were very lovely. I found it painful to butcher a chicken I’d raised by myself.

I slit its throat, causing it to spurt blood. I felt how the chicken was betrayed. It gave a shiver of pain and finally death. When it flaked out, I poured it with hot water.  I dressed the Kabir meat like the way I’d prepare any meat I bought from Talipapa, a small shop of household products along the highway.

When the meat was done, I tried to sip at its broth. Yes, the taste was good. But while eating, the image of the charming chicken lingered in my mind. I was hungry, yet I could not devour the meat the way I’d scoff chicken when I was hungry. I was very sad and guilt-ridden.

Since then, I promised not to eat any chicken I had raised myself.

***

One day, I found some big eggs in the grass. The ducklings I bought from Ma’am Yolanda without my noticing them had grown into duck hens. I immediately picked up the eggs and placed them in the incubator.

Months passed so fast. My house was indeed an aviary.

What was amazing, too, was that most of my neighbours’ chickens had turned either black or white and their feathers became curly like my chickens, Bucay and Robin. My Kabirs didn’t go out, so they couldn’t propagate their inheritable factors.

***

Straight away, I resigned from my job in the Graduate School. My problem began then: I needed someone to take care of my birds while I was away. But no one would. Above and beyond, rearing birds needed a lot of money. Their feed was expensive. For one, all my money went to my birds’ feed. My birds were voracious, I think.

When I was accepted to teach at another college, I needed to sell my birds to my neighbours. I freed all the quails in the sugarcane field. Some children hunted the birds and I didn’t know if I’d be happy or not. The children could take care of the quails while in the sugarcane field, they might be put at risk. The sugarcane field had a lot of rats and mice and so it was a dangerous place, a back of beyond, for the quails. I bemoaned why I suddenly released them into the wild.

I sold the ducks to Toto Tonio, my aunt’s husband and whose house was in front of mine. I’ve heard he made duck tim of my ducks. Toto Jake sold my thirty Kabir chickens to someone in the town. The next day, the thirteenth of June, was the town’s fiesta day. I stared over my sunglasses with a long, doleful look of disbelief. I sniffed and felt woebegone.

Nelly and Donna were looking sadly at me. All the three chickens seemed to ignore me as if they already knew their lot. They were so quiet as if they had been in a sulk. I wanted to cry but held it back. I didn’t shed a single tear. When a neighbour handed to me my money, I took my luggage and dragged it to the main road, but the memory of my chickens made me writhe with pang of conscience.

The next day, I’d taken up another job in a college in Iloilo City.

I don’t want to hear any news about my chickens. Of course, it has been nine years since I left Barotac Nuevo. A wimp, it seems I’ve run away, leaving behind the memories of my chickens.