The Chickens are No More

16.02.2011 The Chickens are No More
The chickens on the compound are, well, gone. Disappeared. They may be ex-chickens. Or in fact, um, dead. The baby chickens have been gone for a while, I just didn’t like to tell you. We woke one morning to find no baby chickens, I mean chicks(we speak Alfie speak all the time) and were told the cold had taken them. Hmm.
The daddy chicken (cockerel) went soon after, this time we were told that some residents had complained about the noise. Not us! We love that cockadoodledoo at all hours of the night and day. Besides there is another one living just outside our gates so it doesn’t make much difference. Though now I come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for a while either.
Finally they all went and poor old Alfie had to make do with chasing pigeons, which his friend the pool guy kindly fed with bits of rice. I wasn’t too impressed, more because the blighters sit and poo by the shallow end of the pool than because they are hateful rats of the sky sort of thing, but I figure Alfie was so delighted and they practically live on our roof anyway, what difference does it make?
Then last week we had a slip through the door from the management company to tell us that on NO ACCOUNT were we to feed or encourage birds in the compound. Slight pang of guilt as I’d put aside a bread crust for Alfie to contribute to the feeding spectacle, though it may well have ended up in the bin as I forgot to tell Amber what it was for… in any case, it’s all because avian flu has been diagnosed in a case somewhere in the Rakhine region, so y’know, precautions and all that. (You can just imagine Pete’s reaction, scoff was not the word!)
Well anyway the upshot is we are reduced to several hundred sparrows instead. Or maybe a couple of dozen or so; they hang out by the wall and do plenty of fluttering and fighting and tweeting and they seem to keep Alfie amused a fair bit. But it’s not the same without the chickens.