Longhorn Leghorn ruled the chicken coop because he controlled the grain.
At least, that was how he marketed it.
The farmer brought the grain every morning, leaving the sack beside the coop before tending the rest of the farm. Longhorn had learned to use the chickenhawk to choke off access and create scarcity.
He wasn’t a smart rooster. He was a greedy, motivated rooster without much trouble from his conscience. He had come far from his days as a poulet, when he first discovered how much harm a creature could do in the barnyard and still be invited to breakfast.
“Finest feed this farm has ever seen,” he declared, scratching a few kernels toward the chickens. “Before me, you were eating dirt. Terrible dirt. Everybody knows that.”
The chickens remembered eating rather more grain before Longhorn, but remembering did not produce breakfast. Besides, they didn’t want to remember how they had allowed this arrangement to develop.
Instead, they gathered at his feet.
Beneath their own feet, termites were eating the coop.
Beetles had joined them from somewhere beyond the farm. Longhorn had welcomed them personally after admiring their magnificent golden shells.
“Successful creatures,” he announced. “Look at the finish. If we had more beetles, we’d be great again!”
This was slightly insulting to the chickens, cows, sheep, and goats. But acknowledging that would mean admitting other things they preferred not to admit, such as having welcomed a chickenhawk into the coop.
Longhorn placed the beetles under the chickenhawk’s command. They kept whatever they chewed through. He called this an excellent deal.
The termites and beetles consumed the floorboards, the fence posts, and the lower portion of a sign reading OUR FOUNDATIONS ARE STRONG.
The chickens could have eaten the termites. Several could have managed the beetles.
Instead, they watched Longhorn’s claws.
Whenever one looked too closely at a termite or beetle, the rooster crowed and the chickenhawk made a pass over the flock.
So they turned their heads to see whether there might be another kernel.
Security and war belonged to this cross-eyed, greasy chickenhawk, who believed himself a rooster. He drank enough that it rarely occurred to him he had exchanged his independence for a position bullying chickens on behalf of a common barnyard bird.
Longhorn had given him a perch, a polished helmet, and a tin cup that was regularly refilled.
Whenever his head cleared enough for doubt, Longhorn patted him on the back, replenished the cup, and said, “My son. Great son.”
Once he felt special again, the chickenhawk forgot what had troubled him.
He strutted beneath the flag, crowing badly and issuing orders in two directions.
“Clear those trees,” he commanded the beetles.
“Why?” asked a hen.
“Security.”
“The trees are outside the farm.”
“Then they have no business being so close to it.”
The beetles went to work.
A tree fell. It killed a nest of rabbits, displaced a family of chipmunks, and brought down a wasp nest.
“WASP NEST WIPED OUT,” announced the chickenhawk.
The surviving wasps relocated farther into the forest, where nobody had previously had a wasp problem.
When questions arose about the destruction, and whether a more precise approach to the wasps might have been wiser, the chickenhawk appeared before the chickens with his chest inflated and his cup concealed behind a wing.
“Did you order the beetles into the forest?” asked the hen.
“Those brave beetles went where others feared to chew. Those wasps endangered your dear leader! And you! And everyone! Do you support wasps?”
“On your instructions, did the beetles wipe out a family of rabbits?”
“So now you want to prosecute every beetle who ever served this farm?”
“We’re asking about the orders you gave.”
“YOU DON’T SUPPORT OUR PATRIOTIC BEETLES.”
Someone scratched at the ground and mumbled, “Collateral damage.”
Longhorn scratched three kernels toward the helpful contribution.
“He is a great patriot. No one should question him or me. We are great. The wasps are evil, evil, evil. Surely they would have spread and stung every one of us.”
The chickens withdrew the question.
They were afraid of wasps. Very, very afraid.
That and fire ants.
They shivered.
Above them, the crows watched.
They visited the farm for spilled grain and carried news back to the forest, where they ate whatever the predators left behind. It was a practical arrangement. A crow could breakfast beside a trough and dine beside a carcass without declaring allegiance to either.
They were opportunists. Some wondered whether greater conflict might produce greater opportunity.
“The chickens are consuming feed,” they reported. “Very few eggs. Plenty of speeches. The infestation is spreading.”
In the paddocks, the sheep were unimpressed.
“Our breakfast arrived.”
“As did ours,” said the cows.
“The forest animals can’t even get along with one another,” observed a goat. “Have you seen how the rabbits behave around the foxes?”
“Very suspicious,” agreed the sheep.
They gathered beneath the farm flag and expressed their faith in the arrangements.
A crow landed on a fence post.
Something inside it crunched.
“Your arrangements are being eaten.”
The goat examined the crow.
“Easy to criticize when nobody has to provide your hay.”
Beyond the paddocks, the forest continued being a forest.
The wolves quarreled over hunting grounds. The foxes distrusted the coyotes. The bobcats preferred everyone at a distance, and the mountain lion considered meetings a poor use of daylight.
They agreed that the racket from the coop had become intolerable.
They were also growing angry at how the forest was being reshaped.
The wasps, reportedly wiped out, were establishing themselves in several inconvenient places. Forest animals had died. Trees had fallen. The chickenhawk was calling it a complete success.
The predators began to agree that chickens were edible.
This did little to reassure the rabbits.
“We have clover,” said a rabbit. “Our interests are adequately served by staying away from all of you.”
“We have acorns,” said the squirrels.
“We had acorns,” corrected a chipmunk.
That morning, another oak had fallen.
It should have stood another fifty years. Instead, it lay across three burrows, a winter cache, and the path the rabbits used when avoiding the fox.
Termites moved through its broken heartwood.
A crow perched on the exposed roots.
“From the coop.”
The squirrels inspected the ruin. The chipmunks counted their losses. The rabbit found herself agreeing with a fox, which spoiled an already difficult morning.
They remained wary of one another. Nobody suggested otherwise.
But each could follow the trail of chewed wood back to the farm.
Inside the coop, the chickens held another meeting.
“The infestation has reached the forest,” said the hen.
“Foreign affairs,” said the chairman.
“It began under our feet.”
“Domestic affairs, then. We’ll need a separate committee.”
“We could eat the termites.”
A shocked silence followed.
“And the beetles.”
The chickenhawk lurched to his feet.
“An attack on our finest fighting creatures!”
“They’re eating our home.”
Longhorn lifted one claw above the grain.
“No, but they could. We shouldn’t upset them.”
The chickens watched the grain and the claw. They heard the threat.
The hen looked from their beaks to the insects crawling beneath the roost.
There were enough chickens to end the infestation. Enough to empty the chickenhawk’s cup, pull down his perch, and send Longhorn scratching for his own breakfast.
Nobody moved.
Outside, another branch cracked.
The crows carried the news.
The sheep pressed closer together. The goats praised the fence. The cows continued chewing.
In the forest, the predators began approaching the farm by different paths. They argued as they came.
The rabbits stayed well clear. The squirrels climbed the remaining sound trees.
Nobody marched in formation.
At the coop, Longhorn announced that the forest had never been more respectful.
“Look how quietly they’re coming.”
The chickenhawk ordered the fence to hold.
The fence, having been eaten through, declined.
The chickens turned toward Longhorn.
Longhorn scratched the dirt.
Nothing came out.
Beyond him stood the fox, the wolves, the coyotes, the bobcat, and the mountain lion, still disagreeing over who would have what.
A crow settled above the doorway.
“Well,” it said. “At last, this coop may provide a meal.”
“Ai Ai.”
“Ai Ai.”
Moral: Hens that eat their fill while leaving rot to spread may find the table set with themselves instead.
