Kouis

Non-Fiction by Andre’ M. Prinsloo

When I was around thirteen years old, my family went through a stage (at my direction, mostly) of buying baby chickens, as pets. The reason I say chickens in the plural is because they have a high rate of infant mortality, much like Angola. One day as we drove past an intersection on the road that led to our farm house (the property was a house on a farm owned by my father’s company), I saw a man selling hatchling chickens on the side of the road underneath a clump of blue gum trees. I implored my mother to stop so I could have a look, and she grudgingly complied (perhaps aware of what was to come). I got out of our old Opel Astra, and proceeded immediately to fall in love with chickens. Their fluffy yellow bodies, their cheeping voices and their inquisitive eyes were all too much for me. At five Rand a bird, how could I –or rather, my mother- say no? We got two, and I rode the rest of the way home with them on my lap in a box, hopping and sliding around all over each other.

We stopped on our way at a farming supplies store, and bought a bag of “Chick-Chick #1”, the type of food one is apparently supposed to feed newly hatched chickens. It’s a fairly fine crushed mixture of maize and seeds, and the birds enjoyed it fantastically. Of course, as we were soon to discover, chickens are partial to just about anything, and even without food they will often thrive on what looks to us like bare ground alone.  Watching them flit about the garden pecking at the ground here and there, it looked to me like the bobbing of their heads was so designed to easily provide for their “scropping” habits. With each step the head seems to move forwards and down, and in one motion the targeted morsel is snatched up, gobbled, and swallowed as the next step causes the head to move back. Voila, the perfect eating machine. Much to the dismay of my gardening parents and much to my delight, they would walk around endlessly cheeping and pecking, legs seeming to rotate with a mechanical fury when a particularly tasty looking worm was spotted.

Unfortunately, by the second day one of the birds was looking weak, and by that evening was dead. There seemed to be no explanation; it was just a “weak one”. I could not accept that, and worked furiously at ensuring the survival of the remaining chick. Much to my horror, less than a week later the surviving bird was killed by one of our dogs after escaping from his hok. I sank into depression for a week or two and blamed myself for what had happened, envisioning great wheels of Karma turning to crush me for not protecting my younguns’. After a while the feeling simply passed, as time has a way of ensuring (and for a child often very little time), and I emerged ready to try again.

So one day during those holidays I walked down to the same man under those trees (he’s probably still there to day, selling of his weak-born chickens), and stood for a long time clutching five Rand of my holiday money, pondering which chicken to pick. After around ten minutes, which were flooded with enthusiastic suggestions by the “salesman”, I settled on a bird that, while not the largest, seemed the sturdiest of the bunch. I gladly handed over my cash (a lot of money to me back then), and collected my prize. I walked/ran back to the house with him in my hand, his head seeming to lurch in time with my footfalls. In great excitement I showed my mother, who naturally displayed the proper amount of disdain, and left him in her capable hands while I set about seeing to his quarters.

Having seen how chickens greatly enjoy traversing large areas in their ongoing search for food, and how they will in fact endeavour to reach such areas, I decided to not build him a cage, but rather partition a section of the yard for his own personal use. There was to be no expense spared in time, money or labour when it came to this chick. With the construction finally over (in which I was assisted by my father of course), I showed the bird to his quarters and scattered some feed about for his consumption. Unlike my previous attempt at chicken-keeping, this one looked to be a resounding success. He grew up strong and fast, and one day in a fit of inspiration I christened him “Kouis”. I had no idea of how to properly spell Koos, and thus the name and spelling stuck. When the correct spelling was pointed out to me, I decided that it was too crude for what was to be so grand a beast, and so Kouis he remained, though pronounced the same.

In about a month’s time we moved house, to a place in town, which was a small house but with a large and lovely garden. My father and I again set about annexing land for Kouis, who was by now a towering twenty centimeters and of a gleaming white colour, already standing proud and tall. It stood to reason that such a rapidly growing young rooster should have a decent territory to roam, at least to my reason, and I convinced my father to allow him a full half of the yard. This I managed by pointing out that keeping the dogs out of that side would allow my father to maintain it nicely, and since he had planned on that side (the back of the house) being the braai area anyway, it worked out well. Kouis thrived in his new environment, and within another two months stood over a foot tall, with a bursting proud chest and a growing bright red cock’s comb. Often would I sit and stroke his head, with a finger placed either side of the comb, and he would croon contentedly in his deepening rooster’s voice.

However, perhaps due to his grandiose territory and cocky nature, he developed a stunning and (to me at least) magnificent aggression. With increasing regularity he would charge around the yard after anyone who dared enter his domain, administering a startling flying kick type of attack upon the trespasser’s leg. It came to the point when children (even my then sixteen year old sister) had to sprint for the trampoline as a safe haven, and he would cluck angrily around it in circles until he got bored and left in search of something to munch. Then the proposed victim or victims would hurtle back to the safety of the house with Kouis in hot pursuit, often earning themselves a gash on the leg if they were too slow. Once he even jumped onto the trampoline, unable to stand being so close yet so far from his prey, overcoming his fear of the potentially lethal gaps between the springs, and in a flurry of feathers scrambled around in a fit of rage at its elastic surface. He promptly removed himself from its slippery, treacherous tarpaulin, and ambled off with what looked to me exactly like humiliation.

It may sound like a joke, but ten-odd kilograms of aerodynamic chicken hurtling at you with claws and beak bared is a sight enough to make anyone run. Eventually, when we wanted to sell the house, my sister would have to lead agents around the yard armed with a rake, for which Kouis had an irrational fear. He would seem to seethe in rage and afterwards would, with renewed viciousness, attack anything that entered unprepared into his domain. All of this I found highly amusing, even as he grew into a half-metre tall monster and I earned myself several of his trademark blood blisters. My love for him was unmatched, and I was overjoyed to hear that chickens can live for twenty years or more if cared for well. I fed him only the best (including dog pellets and fairly often meat), and built him a fine roost underneath the lapa, from which he could easily begin his patrols in any direction.

It was around this time that my parents got us two puppies, and with great suspicion I reinforced the fence that marked Kouis’ border. Despite my reinforcements, one day I awoke to the sound of Kouis shouting in alarm, and the sound of a dog whining and barking. I went out to investigate and found a hole in the fence, made by the confounded dog, and Kouis nowhere in sight. With apprehension rising in my belly I spotted a smear of blood on one of the pinewood planks, and went around to the other side of the yard.

In the front yard we kept our caravan parked under a tree, and this was the dogs’ area. The 4-month-old boerbul crossbreed, Rusty, came to me with blood on her snout and a feather plastered on one lip, and I furiously shoved him out of my way. I rushed over to the caravan where Kouis was clucking from, and got down on all fours to inspect underneath. There sat Kouis, feet spread in a fighters’ stance, with a tinge of red on both and his beak. With much difficulty I extracted him and to my amazement found him unharmed. After putting him back on his side of the yard and hauling a pot plant over to block the gap, I went back to take a look at Rusty. I realized that the cause of his whining and the blood was his own snout, which on closer inspection turned out to be bleeding from several places.

It turned out that Rusty had broken through the fence to get at the chicken, only to find him ready and waiting on the other side. Kouis must have attacked viciously, then run for shelter under the caravan from where he would have the advantage. From there, battle cries roaring, he had continued his assault on the hapless dog, who had retreated whining after being savaged from beneath the caravan several times. I was amazed. How could a chicken, albeit a large and splendid one, outfight and outstrategise a bred fighting hound? Yet it seemed that Kouis’ relentless defense of his territory and fierce unmatched bravery had paid off, and Rusty never interfered with him again.

After some time we moved house again, and Kouis of course came right along with us. Not too impressed by the car journey or his new residence, he seemed to lose some of his feistiness. He was confined to the kitchen courtyard, only around 4m by 4m, and although I turned the outside storeroom into his own private roosting area, he was not happy with the lack of space and largely concrete flooring. It pained me to see him unhappy, but there was nothing I could do to make it better. My parents tentatively suggested giving him away, but I refused and held him close to me, aghast that they could even imply such a thing! I gave him as much attention as possible, and fed him the best we could buy. From time to time I even moved the dogs and let him roam in the garden, but still he was not his old self.

Then one day, not too long after we moved in, my mother came into my room one morning and said Kouis was hurt. Feeling horribly distressed, I ran out to his courtyard to see what had happened. He was sitting at the base of the only tree in the garden, a young Macadamia nut, and seeming to lean against it. His breath was coming in gasps, and his old familiar rrrrrrcluckcluckcluck was tainted with a gurgling sound. I inspected his throat, and found a puncture wound just above his crop. I tenderly set him down and tried to give him some water, but he would not drink. With harsh tears blurring my eyes I went to the gate that led to the other side of the yard, and found the other dog –Darla- skulking around in the bushes, also nursing a cut open snout. There were, however, no feathers, and the gate had also been closed. How could Kouis have been hurt by her, since there was chicken mesh across the bars?

I looked at Kouis again and saw his feet were scratched as well, and I realized what must have happened. Darla must have been pawing at the gate trying to get at him, and he must have retaliated in his usual fashion, fouling his feet on the wire and sticking himself in the throat on a protruding piece. Loving him, holding him, yet at that moment almost hating him for his unrelenting territorial-ness that led to his injury, we rushed him to the vet. I waited outside in apprehension, praying and hoping against hope that the vet could save him, all the while painfully aware of the fragility of birds, until my father came out… without Kouis. He grasped my shoulder and with the shine of tears in his own eyes softly told me that Kouis was not going to make it; his throat had been punctured through.

It felt as if my whole world crushed onto me at that moment, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down and die right next to my poor, proud companion. My dad asked if I wanted to take him home to bury him but I said I could not. I was far too tightly clenched in the grip of grief to look upon my friend in his dying state, and hating the world, hating God, and hating myself I trudged back to the car. I could not bear to mention his name on the way home, and the thought of him dead, glory and splendour in the ground to rot forgotten, brought hot stinging tears to my eyes again. I broke down and bawled like a baby, wanting nothing more than to undo his hurt and be with him again.

Of course, I had no such luck, and felt (not for the first time, but easily the worst) the harsh, unforgiving taste of mortality. In those days I relished the thought of my own death, and though I didn’t believe I would be with him again when I died (for how could such a cruel world allow me such happiness?), I would at least not have to hurt any more. My only comfort was that he died never having faced defeat in all his life, to be beaten only by hard cold steel, and even in his own doom having turned back his last opponent. I will always love him, and I will always remember him.  

Andre’ M. Prinsloo, Age 18, contact princeoftheloo@yahoo.com

Copyright 2009 Andre’ M. Prinsloo

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Sictorius*Glorio*Mundi