We inherited a dozen chooks with a couple of roosters at the edge of the native bush. The lovely, rare, amazing native hawk came to check often if there was a suitable lunch for him on our yard, or anywhere in the village, actually. The chooks were mixed breed, banthams and japanese ones, all of them small, but in the long grass, bushes, under the big trees by their spacious chook house they were safe. The boys warned them if anything was up, and in no danger they still decided to be frightened at least three times a day. Some of them were so tame that my little two year old fairy could walk with them in her arms. We whitewashed the chook house, cleared it up flawlessly for them. We had chicks but one way or another most of them always got lost despite of our efforts. At the edge of the native forest you don’t only get the hawk, the neighbour’s roaming dogs, idle cats, stoats, possums, get them under the most devoted care. And we were devoted, only not for safety, we were devoted for their happiness. They never again were shut in for the afternoon. They slept on the trees and under the bushes, returning to feed to the house when we remembered to feed them. There’s no need by the forest to feed.
We managed to raise an extra rooster somehow and next spring the fights began. When one of the guys were beaten senseless, we nursed him back to life then decided to get rid of two of the three roosters, choosing carefully the one that had the freshest genetics for our ladies. We, despite of excellent hungarian rooster-paprikash recipes, and full consciousness of the fragility of the native flora, still considered the two dependent lives first and let the boys go and try their luck in the wilderness.
Soon it was evident, that the remaining rooster wasn’t up to the task. A hawk took a chook a day, and in a couple of weeks they were all gone.