As part of my job at Correias’ Enterprises Ltd., where I worked during 1966-1968, I visited their Broiler and Layer operations at Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara in Guyana. One day I saw the foreman remove a black feathered baby chick from the brooding area on the farm. Newly hatched broiler chicks had just been placed there. He was about to kill it so I stopped him. I knew that it was routine to remove and kill the weak ones because they never did survive. He told me that from his experience a black feathered chick would not survive because the other white feathered birds would pick it to death. I decided to take the chick home.
I cared for it and it grew into an adult bird with pretty barred feathers. It became our pet and we called it Chickie. Chickie was a female. She was accepted by the dogs and cats in the home and I often saw her resting among them. Sometimes she ate their food much to their annoyance. She did not want to be left out of their company. They did not harm her.
As Chickie got older, I placed her in a cage. She became conditioned into receiving feed when I came home at noon. So as soon as she saw my car in the driveway she became excited, made some noises and moved from side to side until she was fed. Chickie and I became attached to each other. She was a large bird, being a broiler, a meat type bird, and was very tame.
After about six months, Chickie started to lay large eggs. By chance she learnt a trick. She started to break her eggs and eat them. On a few occasions I was able to intercept the eggs as soon as they were laid. Meat type birds are generally poor layers but Chickie was a good layer. Perhaps this could be attributed to the care and attention she received. It has been proven that happy and contented cows produce more milk than normal.
I recently saw an item on TV. A lady had a duck as her pet. It followed her in her home and slept in a box next to her bed. She had a lot of cleaning to do each day. The lady was very attached to her duck and she claimed that she received as much happiness from her duck as others did with a dog, cat or horse. That story reminded me of Chickie.