DURNED GINNY HENS!
I was home from school one week-end and it so happened that I was working in the barn on a Saturday morning with one of the older farm hands.
We heard a sudden screaming, cackling and clucking, crowing commotion from the chicken house area. We heard it, as did everyone within several hundred yards or so..
“We're a-gitten company!” my co-worker announced. “Them damned Ginny hens is a cacklin' like crazy! Strangers is a-gittin' too close!”
I stepped to the barn door and, sure enough, a car I did not recognize pulled up in front of the house. I did not know either of them.
“Ha!” laughed Bill when I picked up my pitch fork up to rejoin him at our task,: “Strangers, I'll bet, too. Right?”
I had to agree I did not recognize either of the two newcomers and Bill, looking pleased and content, relied.”Them ginny hens! You can't fool them ginny hens! Smart as he come! Regular feathered burglar alarms, that's what they are!”And. he said it all with authority and a tone of admiration and pleasure in his rough voice.
Most people would around there would have agreed with him about the guinea hens, too. They were hangovers from previous years. We had about twenty of them as a rule. They were easily distinguished from chickens because they were all bald headed, no feathers on their heads and they were uniformly gray in color with white spots all over.. They had come, I understand from Guinea in North Africa (numida meleagris) probably as a part of food supplies on slave ships. They ranged peacefully with chickens. Most of ours roosted at night in the chicken houses. Six of them in one house and the rest in a larger house where they took over one corner and perched apart in their own little guinea world.
It may seem odd to people today but we respected the presence of guinea fowl among the chickens in those days. They were, as Bill had said, “watchdogs.” It was generally agreed that when you heard guinea hens putting up a loud clattering there were strangers in the area. If during the daylight house, that gave women in the back of the house, a moment of to tidy up the premises or personal appearance, pat their hair into place, possibly remove her apron to greet the newcomers at the back door. Relatives and regular visitors did not get more than peep or two from the vigilant birds.. Only strangers, newcomer, wanderers, sales persons and, most important of all, chicken thieves
I don't pretend to know how they seem to have been gifted with a special ability which enabled hem to detect strange sounds. A different car, the voice of a stranger, the noise of any unusual movements in the area.... seemed to alert the sensitive inner mechanism which resulted in a din of loud cackling, clattering and even scream-like warnings.
Guinea fowl were nice to have on a place and very little effort take care of them. The eggs were edible, though sometimes scoffed at by oldsters. You seldom found any guinea hen eggs in the nests with the chicken eggs, because they took care to perpetuate their species by laying their eggs in secret spots all over the farm where they could hatch out and a brood and be sure to continue residence at the same farm. Yes, they could be eaten along with chickens, but they were much more valued as a living alarm system and numerous stories are told and re-told about how a certain guinea hen can be said to have saved the homestead from ruin at least once or twice, kept thieves at bay - and we did have chicken and turkey rustlers in those days. Turning a sudden light was all it took to send a shadowy human figure running across the fields.
If you had guinea hens on guard, and still lost chickens, you could be pretty sure it was an inside job.
A.L.M. APRIL 1, 2003 [c678 wds]
