Fun with Pets, Damn the Pandemic!

Sometime during 2020, or maybe 2021, who knows…

I saw an ad for Chicken Arms the other day. Perhaps you’ve seen them. Little plastic doll arms you can put on live chickens for your personal amusement, e.g., when you’ve hit the bottom of the “100 Fun Things to Do in Quarantine” list. 

I wanted them, the chicken arms. I really did. I wanted nine pairs of little pink babydoll arms that I could surreptitiously attach to my grandkids’ chickens, presumably by sneaking over there in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep. I thought it might amuse the children to wake up in the morning, traipse out all unknowing to feed the chickens, only to find they’d sprouted human arms. That would be amusing, right? Or sadistic. I didn’t really think it through.

At any rate, there were snags, not the least being my aversion to touching any bird not cooked and immobile on a plate. And you can’t really buy “chicken arms” anyway; what you can get is a pair of plastic doll arms suitable for wiring up to your chicken of choice. Well, the impediments multiply, don’t they.

Apparently, raising chickens in the backyard has become extremely popular, especially as we enter our fifth month of home confinement (self-imposed or otherwise) as an out-of-nowhere, raging virus closes workplaces, schools, recreation areas and places of worship. 

Oh, we were a stoic bunch going in. We baked loaves of bread by the thousands, we sewed a million face masks, reread War and Peace and alphabetized the canned goods. STILL, the damned pandemic refused to go away. Now…chicken arms. “We are swamped with orders,” says Nancy Smith, owner of the Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, Missouri. “We can’t answer all the calls, and we’re booked out weeks.” 

America the disaffected. People so dull and spiritless they think raising poultry behind the garage could be both fun and economical. Why not! 

Post-pandemic note: The kids subsequently helped their dad build a grand new chicken coop. There are now more chickens than ever. I occasionally get free eggs.