The phrase “No Harm, No Foul” originated in the game of basketball.  It simply stated that if the actions of a player caused no harm to either another player or to the outcome of a play, then no foul should be called.  The phrase has now made its way into the common vernacular.

I am taking this phrase one step further.  The “fowl” I am referring to is of the feathered variety.

Since we have moved to the farm, many people have asked me why we don’t have chickens.  The answer is quite simple.  Because I don’t like them.

Well, okay, that’s not completely true.  There are some things about them that I like.  In fact, there are some things I love.  I love the cute, soft, fuzzy, peeping baby chicks.  I love farm-fresh eggs with their firm, golden-yellow yolks that make the pale-yellow yolks of store-bought eggs look downright sickly.  I love the look of the majestic rooster crowing atop the fencepost.  I love the look of the protective mother hen, scratching the dirt while her brood playfully frolics beside her. 

In fact, I love the look so much that I have decorated my kitchen with that look.

My mother was a chicken aficionado.  Every spring, she would drag my dad to a town an hour away from our farm where they would purchase approximately 250 new chicks of various breeds.  Within weeks, those “cute, soft, fuzzy, peeping baby chicks” would turn into squawking, feathered, smelly half-grown fowl.  When they had grown large enough to distinguish their characteristics, Mom would hand-pick 25 or 30 hens to be her “layers” for the coming year, and one or two roosters to lead them.  The rest were butchered and put in the freezer.  The old hens that no longer routinely laid eggs were also butchered and used for soup.  Mom shared the butchered chicken with family, and sold extra eggs to friends and neighbors.  Just as we had “Daddy’s mules”, we had “Mom’s chickens”.

Obviously, I shared my Dad’s love of all equine creatures, but I never shared my mother’s love of domesticated fowl.  So, what is it, exactly, that I don’t love, you ask?  Well, let me tell you, my dislike of fowl was established early, and runs deep. 

During the course of my childhood, I was chased across the farmyard by roosters, had my legs scratched and pecked by roosters who sneakily attacked from the rear, and was even held hostage in the hayloft by a maniacally crowing rooster who strutted and wildly flapped its wings at the foot of the hayloft stairs.  I was finally rescued by my dad who heard my frantic screams.

During my daily task of gathering eggs, I gingerly attempted to sidestep the juicy, smelly piles of chicken poop on my way to the coop where I hoped beyond hope that I would not either

A. get my hand pecked by a protective hen still on the nest, or

B. reach into an upper nest too high for a child to see into and grab a slimy, broken egg or a fresh pile of poop instead of the egg.

All of those things happened. 

But the worst was the butchering.  I still have visions of the madly-flopping, blood-spurting, headless chicken corpses.  I can still smell the steamy, wet feathers that stuck to my fingers.  I can still feel the slimy gizzard in my hand as I peeled off the lining.  Kentucky Fried, anyone?

With those kinds of childhood experiences, why on earth would I ever agree to fowl on my farm?!

Because I can’t say no to my family.

This is a photo of one of our granddaughters on the day we purchased six cute, soft, fuzzy, peeping baby ducks.  Domestic ducks.  Ducks that I knew would quite rapidly grow into adult ducks.

I had been begged by some of my immediate family members (You know who you are!) to purchase ducks for our farm.  Besieged and beleaguered, I finally acquiesced.  Fine.  One or two ducks, I said.

At the store, the salesman told me that one or two really wasn’t a good idea.  They need a flock, he told me.  At least six, he said.

I sighed.  Fine.  I bought six.

Fern was terribly excited about the new additions to our farm family.  She was equally disappointed however when I made it clear that picking up one of the babies in her mouth was not acceptable.  Fine, she told me nonverbally as she apologetically dropped her head – and the baby.

The plan had been to raise the babies to adulthood, then show them to our pond.  We figured they could roam the pond area during the day, then upon their return to the barn at night, we would lock them in one of our stalls to keep them safe from predators.

That was the plan.

The reality is that they didn’t “roam”.  They got fat, and lazy, and never waddled beyond our corral boundary.  To keep them out of the horse’s water trough, we set up a trough right next to the barn in which they could swim and bathe. 

Duck ownership quickly became a case of déjà vu.  They noisily quacked all day long and pooped everywhere.  The smelly, dirty water needed to be replaced daily. They dug in the mud with their bills and destroyed the grass in the corral that we had so painstakingly attempted to nurture for our horses.  One morning, I stepped outside for my chores and would have sworn it had snowed if it hadn’t been late summer.  The ducks had molted and feathers were everywhere.

Danny and I came to a decision.  The ducks had to go.  We did not reach this decision lightly.  Our animals quickly become family members.  Once a part of our farm family, always a part of our farm family.  We considered giving up on the ducks a personal failure.

We contacted some friends who lived on the outskirts of town.  They had a pond and we knew that they had, in the past, had some ducks.  They agreed to take them.

About a week after the delivery, I drove past their home and saw our ducks on their pond.  I thought they looked happier.

And I know we were.  No Fowl, No Harm.

(You want to read some more chicken stories?  Check out the April and October chapters of my first book, A Year on the Family Farm.)

Next Week:  Stand-Off