I'm really beginning to feel bad for my cluckies. Tonight, as I trudged down to the barn in the newly falling snow, I heard someone singing from inside the barn. It was a male voice, all depressed and forlorn sounding:
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,
There they are standing in a row.
Big ones small ones,
Some as big as your head..."
Upon opening the door and stepping inside, I saw Chicken Hawk slumped against the door of Cooptown, his wing hanging outside the wire doors and keeping time to his song.
"What are doing?" I asked.
Without even looking up at me he sighed and said,"I have a favor to ask you."
"OK..." I replied. "What is it? You know I can't let you out yet, right?"
"Yes, I know," Chicken Hawk said. "Because of that, I would like for you to call me Zazu from now on."
I snickered. What a nerd, I thought. "Why do you want to be called Zazu?" I asked, trying not to laugh and embarrass him.
"Because that is who I feel like right now. You know...I'm all trapped inside this cage for days on end. No freedom anymore. Cad-Buddy doesn't share the ladies. I'm familiar with The Lion King. I saw it recently and I really identified with his character."
"I see...well there really isn't anything we can do right now. It's very dangerous outside the coop."
Chicken Hawk...I mean Zazu...nodded and looked down at the ground.
I started to feel really bad. "I'm sorry..." He didn't respond. I started to debate if I could get an anti-depressant for my bird, then stopped myself and started to walk away. I had stalls to clean.
Suddenly, from behind, I heard a female voice shout: "CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT!?!?!"
Startled out of my wits, I stumbled back and fell into the bale of hay, heart pounding in my chest.
Prissy was puffed out and strutting around the coop. I looked up to see Cad-Buddy perched on top of the roost, all the other hens on the floor bowing down to him calling him the great and powerful Mufasa. Prissy had walked over to the door and was poking Chicken Hawk, A.K.A. Zazu, telling him to call her Princess Nala.
What's going on?! My chickens have officially flown the coop! They are NUTS!
I got up and ran out of the barn into the still falling snow. I turned the corner of barn and saw Jimmy and Charlie out in the pasture, raised on their hind feet, teeth barred against one another, snow swirling around them, their manes whipping around in the wind and snow.
"I want to me Simba!" Charlie was yelling.
"NO, I'M SIMBA! You have to be Scar!" Jimmy was screaming back.
Oh my...my animals have officially lost it! Or maybe I have finally flown the coop and gone cuckoo! I don't know anymore. We need sunshine, we need warmth, we need GRASS! We need a safe environment where our chickens can get outside and not go psycho on us from being trapped inside a cage for days on end.
I finally gave up and went back to the house, my evening chores left undone. Behind me, the depressed and sick mind of a rooster who has hit rock bottom:
"That's what the show man said,
Now that I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts,
Everybody knows they'll make me rich.
There stands me wife,
The idle of me life..."
...cluck... cluck... cluck...
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