Poultry on the Prowl

During a recent trip to Hawaii I found out some interesting things about chickens. When we were on a tour of Oahu we saw many chickens that seemed to run wild. Would they be “feral” chickens?   When we reached a lookout point high in the mountains of Oahu the area seemed to be inundated with chickens.  I believe they were what are normally referred to as “game fowl”: the type most often seen competing in cockfights. We asked the guide about why there were so many wild chickens, and his response was that during a hurricane in 1992 many chicken coops had been destroyed, and the chickens had been set free. There were some very young chickens there as well.  They were between  “bitty” and “pullet” stages. I tried to get close enough to catch one but had to settle for a picture. The small ones would make a good meal for a fox or snake, but the chickens have few natural predators, perhaps, only hawks and other raptors. There are no foxes, and the mongoose, “Iole manakuke”, does not inhabit all the islands and usually eats only the eggs. There are no snakes in the Hawaiian Islands.  

Kauai probably has the greatest population of feral chickens. While there I learned something which could have helped me a lot when I was a farm boy. When Saturday came and there would be fried chicken for Sunday dinner, it was my job to catch and kill the unfortunate Rhode Island Red for said Sunday dinner.  I would chase and catch the unfortunate creature before performing the decapitation with my trusty axe. But, while on that mini-bus tour of Kauai our guide told of a different, and albeit more humane, method of execution. (I’m not sure “humane” can be used in reference to animals.) As we, the tourists, gathered around the middle-aged woman in Hawaiian dress she explained catching chickens for the pot in her youth.  She said, ” First you have to catch the chicken. Then you tuck the chicken under your arm, and you stroke the feathers on his back gently. Then you take your forefinger and tap ‘em in the forehead above the eyes.  The chicken will go limp in your hands ‘cause he’s dead.”

If I had known that as a kid there would not have been blood spurting everywhere, and I wouldn’t have had to have been so accurate with the axe. And never would I have heard the phrase, “Running around like a chicken with his head chopped off.”