of chickens and men

My lifetime of keeping chickens began as an army wife, when, living in an army quarter we had to register all our pets.  My husband, then adjutant, and with three chickens in a box on the back seat of the car, was told by his 2IC we weren’t allowed to keep livestock in our army quarter. We’d done some serious homework on this, however, and pointed out that, legally, livestock does not include poultry. Poultry are definitely pets, insisted my husband. Having lost to us on that point, the 2IC glared at my husband, picked up his pen and rather sarcastically requested their names, which is how Alpha, Bravo and Charlie came to be our first hens, living happily in an old dog kennel in the garden, until our Staffordshire bull terrier puppy, Angus, couldn’t bear the sight of them any longer and murdered Bravo while I was on the phone. Alpha had to go to the vet who sprayed artificial skin on her badly wounded back, (the fee for doing so could have bought exactly twenty more chickens) and shortly after that, went with Charlie to live with my parents when we emigrated to Scotland.