When is a chicken not a chicken?

Anyone who keeps chickens knows what intelligent, cheeky and individual creatures they are.  Nothing to do with the sad imprisoned birds killed at less than six weeks old, a billion a year in the UK, to recycle into fast food.  So when we lived on Dartmoor with plenty of space, we decided to keep some hens.

We read the guides to keeping chickens and learnt that we must have a hen house with a pop-hole entrance and straw-lined nesting boxes.  We must choose what breed we wanted; rare breed chickens come in all sorts of beautiful colours. First get the hens, as a cockerel is not a necessity (although the hens may disagree with that).

Nearby in Hatherleigh was a wonderful traditional livestock market (sadly no more) which had a weekly poultry auction, always well attended.  Inside the large shed it was bedlam, chicken crates everywhere, a deafening tannoy blasting the auctioneer's high-speed patter over all the chatter and crowing as his three-fingered assistant opened cages in turn, waving startled birds above his head.  The ancient farmers were even more interesting than the chickens, relics of a former age, wellies caked in slurry, threadbare gaberdine raincoats tied up with baler twine, and weather-beaten faces untouched by soap and water, often with ears that would have made an elephant envious. This was glorious old Devon, long since gone.

We wandered round in our ignorance peering into cages.  Chickens are often sold in threes, two hens and a cockerel.  But everyone is always keen to get rid of their unwanted cockerels, so we learnt the old tricks like putting three young cockerels into a cage with a couple of eggs under them to catch out gullible newcomers.  One bird caught our eye, alone in a cage, the most handsome chap in the auction with beautiful dark speckled plumage and we kept returning to look at him.  But the auctioneer received no bids for him and passed on. 

As the sale finished we looked again, and a farmer came over, 'Ya like 'e don't ya?' 'Um, well yes he's very handsome'.  'Why don't ya take 'e.  I come 'ere today wanting five pounds for 'e, but ya give me four and ya can have 'e'.  'But we haven't got a chicken house yet.'  'Ya got a garage 'aven't ya?'  'Well yes.'  'That be fine for 'e'.  'But he needs something to roost on.'  'Ya got a broomstick?'  'Well yes. But we've got nothing to take him home in'.  'I got a cardboard box, perfect for 'e.'  It seems we had just bought a cockerel... what suckers!  The farmer must have chortled all the way home.  But he was a magnificent bird.

We named him Wellington after the Iron Duke and discovered he was a Speckled Sussex, a very old breed traced to Roman times.  We also later discovered that he was sterile.  More chortling from the farmer!  So our chicken history had started, just as it shouldn't.  Eventually we built up a flock of a dozen Speckled Sussex, and later added six white Indian Runner Ducks and six black Cayugas, for whom we dug a large pond in another paddock.

Hens occasionally go broody, so need to sit on eggs for 21 days to hatch them.  Lots of risks there, they are often clumsy and break them, they steal each other's eggs, and hens can even die of hunger and thirst unless forced to leave the nesting box from time to time.  So in the end we learnt to sneak to the henhouse during the night, take out her eggs and slip a couple of day old chicks under her wing.  In the morning triumphant squawking. 'A miracle!'

The ducks also gave us eggs in late spring and summer, but they were hopeless mothers and after sitting for a few days would say, 'I'm bored of this game, I'm going back on the pond'.  So one day we popped a Runner Duck egg under a broody hen.  They take a week longer than hens eggs to incubate as ducklings are a lot bigger.  When they hatch they seem enormous and far too big for the shell they have just broken out of, whereas chicks look as if they could be folded up and put back in the shell.  So within a few days her duckling was far too big for her to sit on, and while her chicks were all cosy under their mum's wing, the duckling would sit beside her with just his head under her!  But the danger is that whatever a duckling or chick first sees is 'imprinted' on it, and is accepted as its mother.  So our duckling thought he was a chicken!

This was amusing to begin with, but when he was an adult he started trying to mate with the hens who were seriously unimpressed.  He couldn't understand the rejection.  We decided he must learn to be a duck, and so carried him over to the duck house.  'What are those hideous creatures?' he screamed and ran for his life.  We thought that when he discovered the pond he would be overjoyed, so we lowered him gently into the water.  'Now they're trying to drown me.  Help!  Mum!  I'm off.'  And he ran for his life over a bank, across our carpark, round the cottage and under a gate, back to his mum. 

We tried several times, but impossible.  It taught us that you should never mess around with Nature.  But unfortunately that is precisely what Mankind has been doing for years, arrogant enough to think we can manage the world we live in, control its wildlife, crossbreed its crops and animals to suit our desires, spreading fertilisers and herbicides.   Look at the mess we are in now.  It doesn't work. 

The hilarious drawing at the top of this blog is one of the sketches drawn on the spot by my wife Mo who also did the wonderful illustrations for my book Walks on the Wild Side, about my lengthy treks in East Africa.  The book is worth having a look at for her drawings alone.

Anyway, the answer to the riddle in the blog title is obviously:  When it's a duck!

Mountain Gorillas

 In 1938 my mother set off for darkest Africa to found a school in south-west Uganda.  In those days, before the war, few Europeans went into the depths of Africa, and certainly not 24 year old girls.  She stayed there for eight years before marrying my father who lived in Zanzibar and joining him there.  Her school, in a tiny village called Kabale, became one of the leading schools in Uganda.  Even Idi Amin sent his children.  

50 years later, in 1994, the headmistress Lilian Kigorogoro invited her, with the first pupils (now a retired surgeon, doctor and architect) to come and celebrate.  My mother was now 80.  The children of the school had spelt out a welcome message in flowers on the grassy bank and celebrated with music, acting and dancing.  The British High Commissioner, and some Ugandan cabinet ministers who were ex-pupils, came down for the day too.  Most of the original school buildings were still there, amazingly well preserved.  It was a great day and very moving.  

Not far from Kabale are the frontiers with Rwanda and the Congo (DRC).  On these borders volcanic mountain ranges surge upwards from the tropical rainforest.  And here live the world's only Mountain Gorillas; highly intelligent, gentle herbivore giants.  Just a year before our visit, small groups of eco-tourists were first allowed to go and watch them, and we felt it was an opportunity not to be missed.  

Their closest habitat to Kabale was The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.  We'd pre-booked a very basic camping site in the forest, which held just about a dozen people.  That was the only place to stay.  From there a guide took two groups of only half a dozen into the forest every day or so, to where the gorillas had last been seen.   Then trackers took over to follow their route through the dense forest.  Wherever the gorillas had gone, we went, crawling under scrub or scrambling up steep gradients.  It took hours and was exhausting.   

In the deep forest were several families of gorillas, but only two families had been naturalised to tolerate human beings.  As they share 98% of our DNA, they are extremely like us and can catch the same diseases, but while we have built up many immunities, a simple cold could wipe them out.  So extreme caution is necessary.  No one with a cough or runny tummy is allowed into the forest, and 15 feet was the closest contact allowed.  

But the gorillas haven't read the rule book and the guide warned us that sometimes a huge silverback might suddenly block the path.  Hmm, we felt nervous.  Sometimes he might charge, but you mustn't ever run.  That would be a disaster, gorillas are a lot faster than you are.  So you drop to your knees in subservience and look at the ground, while making little grunting noises which gorillas find relaxing.  It's easy to feel subservient when you're close to a 200kg mountain gorilla!  

We were lucky.  After hours we found our family group, but only a stay of one hour was permitted.  Some visitors might only see a hairy arm from behind a tree and had to be content with that.  Others, after a long trek, reached the Congo border and had to turn back disappointed.  It was sheer luck.  There were no guarantees.  

We were in a clearing where a huge fallen tree blocked our path.  On the other side was the family, a vast silverback, four females, and several 'children' scampering about, swinging on lianas and climbing over the adults and sliding down their Dad's back.  They noticed us but ignored us, as we watched and photographed them.  They are so very like us!  

Eventually one of the little ones became more and more interested in us and kept approaching until he was far too close for his safety and the trackers had to keep gently whisking him back with leafy sprigs .  He gazed at us all in turn, fascinated, his little amber eyes melting our hearts.  (My photo above)  

When the family moved off we followed, but one of our group stepped forward between the silverback and a little one.  Bad mistake!  Instantly, with a terrifying roar, the whole tree above the silverback was shaken as if torn by a hurricane and he bounded towards us.  Our instinct was to run, but the guide reminded us to drop to our knees and we grunted humbly.  Almost at once he accepted our apology and returned to his tree.  

The gorilla story has been a cautious success with numbers at last back above 1,000.  But that's all that remain.  Their biggest problem isn't just poaching but loss of habitat as human plantations encroach further and further into this last stronghold of irreplaceable tropical rainforest.  Now though, there is a new threat.  Coronavirus, our familiar demon, would be even more dangerous to gorillas than it is to us and could easily wipe them all out.  

I strongly recommend going to see these incredible creatures, who, like chimps, are our closest cousins, but please do what you can to help protect them.  They are so precious.  WWF have lots of information on-line and you can give directly towards their preservation.