PPTSD

Poultry Post Traumatic Stress Disorder


You can't plan your days... OK, maybe you can, but you can't expect it to go as planned. Ever. 

Take for example, Monday morning. I woke up and there was a tree on/in our chicken coop. A big tree. All plans for the day just went on hold (and there were an over abundance of plans). Not only would we loose our lunch, but having our fence down poses a decent security risk - thus the priority shift for the day. 

Over night we had a storm that knocked out our power (generator), took down branches from our heavy laden mango tree, kept us all awake with rain so loud on our steel roof we literally could not hear ourselves yelling (we tried), wind that blew dirt from my window through my mosquito net and onto my face... by morning it was completely calm.

Consequently, we unwrapped and fired up our new (giant) chain saw. Some local workers had already hacked off the branches and tree top with machetes, but the trunk was too wide for manpower alone. Clément (Bioforce trained dude who started up the base in Jan and just handed over its management to me) took on the trunk and major bits, but I got to work through the smaller bits. Having never used a chainsaw before, I was pretty intimidated... but I am fast getting into the habit of doing things that throughly intimidate me.

During this whole process, I asked that the guards (who also help out a lot around the base) if they could get all the chickens into our fenced yard while we worked on their fence. Sometimes you need to say things more than once around here (especially when you can barely speak French). While I was in the office trying to catch up on emails later that morning, I got a radio call from one of my guards that went a little something like this:

''Mike Romeo Un, Mike Romeo Un'' (base manager's call sign)

''Je t'écoutes''

''Eh, il y a des pouls à l'extérieur''

''D'accord''

''   ''

''Donc, je voudrais tout les poules dans l'intérieur''

''OK, bien copie''

Basically, it was a radio call to tell me there were some chickens outside... I told them I would like them inside. 
Ah, all in a day's work.

When all was said and done, three chickens hadn't flown the coop fast enough and were the dinners of the guys who helped us chop up the tree. Our cooks don't have to go into the jungle for firewood for a while and our chickens have a stronger coop. I did feel a bit like I was ushering a crisis affected population back into a post disaster zone that was once their home... but they still taste the same, so no real harm done.