Chicken Wars

"Their pee is poisonous like a cat's," he said. "It is?" I responded wide-eyed, quickly snapping my fallen lower jaw back into place.  "Yes," he said matter of factly.  "Chicken pee is poisonous. It will kill everything it touches." I gently offered, "I'm thinking that chicken pee isn't poisonous. Nothing has died in my yard other than the bugs or weeds they've eaten." I didn't mention that cat pee isn't poisonous either, just smelly. In the spirit of neighborliness, I thought it best to leave that one alone. "And," he asked with a demanding undertone, "What are you doing about the chicken poop?" "What do you mean what am I doing about the chicken poop? I'm cleaning out the coop once a week and putting all the poop in the composter to use as fertilizer in the garden." I was trying hard not to get defensive. If I didn't have this conversation with him, my neighbor was going to go chicken crazy and call the City on me. I had to be diplomatic. "Don't talk down to him and don't get sarcastic, Ara," I kept silently repeating in my head. "Be nice."

I knew I had to take control of the discussion. "Did you know that chickens on average lay an egg every 26 hours?" He shook his head, "No." "Did you know that chickens not only provide eggs, but also compost for the garden, eat kitchen scraps, and de-bug your yard? Their eggs have less cholesterol and are healthier than the eggs in the grocery store. They even look different—their yolks, I mean. They're bright orange and they taste so much better than store-bought eggs." Inundate him with chicken facts. It will take him a while to process them. "Don't they bring mice and rats?" he asked. "No," I answered calmly. "If anything, they would eat the mice and rats. Have you noticed any in your yard lately?" I could see sanity returning to his face as it relaxed. In one last-ditch flailing attempt he announced, "They wake me up at night." With a look of surprise on my face, "They do? I can't imagine that because I don't have any roosters. Roosters are the ones that wake up in the middle of the night crowing. My girls sleep through the night from sundown to sunup. If there's a chicken waking you up at night, it has to be in someone else's yard."

He was silent, digesting all the chicken facts I threw at him. I thought, "I've won this battle." "Hold on a second," I said. "Stay right there." I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a dozen eggs out of the fridge, and ran back out to hand them to him. "Try these," I said with a big smile. "Let me know how you like them." "Wow," he said, not being able to keep the corners of his mouth from curling. "Fried egg sandwiches are my favorite." Chicken war won.