We have a New Home, Yay!

By Sabarudeng Chick

Hello my name is Sabarudeng. I am one month old. I am ayang bulu tak dok ttekok setabok ( a chicken without any feather on the neck) – don’t ask me what kind of chicken I am, I don’t even know myself. This is the story of how we got our new home.


Yesterday Grandpa as usual took my buddy and I out of the serkop i.e the bamboo basket, and put us in a little paper box. He does this whenever he wants to clean up the floor where he puts the basket, and change our drinking water.


I thought it was going to be like any ordinary day. But ordinary it definitely was not. We stayed inside the box for what seemed a loooong time. We couldn’t fly out as Grandpa covered the top of the box, except for a small breathing hole, and put a heavy object on it. We always wondered what was it out there that’s so dangerous (that’s until Grandpa told us the story of the three-legged lamb…hrrrr spooky…)


Finally we could feel the box being lifted up and carried some distance away. The lid was opened and viola! - we flew out of the box into a completely new place!

 Our new home is a BIG improvement over the 'serkop'.  It was unusual for a chicken coop, but we didn’t mind at all as it was comfortable and airy. There’s wire mesh all round right to the top. I guess that’s to stop us from flying out. But why would we want to fly out from this place, we can stay here forever. Besides the thought of the three-legged lamb limping about scared the shyt out of us.


We darted about exploring this huge new home. Then we realized why it was not the usual wooden coop. It was a kennel-turned-goat house-turned-chicken coop! Very crafty! We liked the place immediately, except for a funny odour*, which we hope will go off quickly.


In the middle of the coop were two sticks for us to take short flights and perch on, something we chicks love to do. In the corner was an open front box, for us to take shelter when it’s windy or when it rains. Grandpa had certainly thought of everything...


We wanted to relax and just chill out, when suddenly a huge black thing appeared out of nowhere and started clawing at our door! We jumped up and perched ourselves up on the stick. This got the black guy more excited. We jumped down and ran to the other corner of the house. He followed us whereever we moved to! He even tried to come into our house from down under! So we retreated to the back and hid inside the box, terrified.

We wondered if this black thing has got anything to do with the three-legged lamb...Come to think of it we remembered seeing it swallow the whole head of a yellow thing...

Look - no head!

We were thinking, if it can swallow the whole head of the yellow thing, which was quite big, what about us? Hrrrr...spooky....


*Grandpa’s note: The odour was from a disinfectant called Lindores. It is an iodophor (combination of Iodine and Phosphoric acid) detergent, sanitizer and disinfectant. I had thoroughly cleaned and sterilized the shed before bringing in the chicken. This will help prevent spread of diseases, especially the dreaded Newcastle disease.