Usually every
xmas we would buy a hen like 4 months before Dec and brood it till 24th then
have it slaughtered.often we would buy it at 0.5kg and feed it to the fullest
by Dec the chick would weigh a hooping 6kg or at best 10kg
So in August
2003 my mum was set for this usual ritual...she set up a better price with a
supplier who brought us this beautiful hen at a good price.It was always my
responsibility to give out some African magic style of putting cooking stick
and a few other stuff on the door for the new chicken to step over.this we
believed made the chicken always find a way back home every evening.
But this chicken
was a different one...the whole night she would remain calm and coiled at mums
feet...she was tender sweet and yummy I have never seen a chicken that would
stay til late night with us to have dinner.
We decided that
this was unusal behaviour so we named her "supu" simply to mean the
beautiful **soup**.
Supu would wake
up everymorning and take our usual black tea she would bite bread and drink
tea...when lunch time came she would hover around the
house until we dished out
some rice for her to peck...one most unusual behavior supu would always run
towards my mom every evening when mom was from work and mom knew what she
wanted...rice....so she would carry some rice in her bag and throw it for
supu...every night and week this was the norm.
Come December we
all knew that the hardest part of the month had come for us...to decide whether
we were going to slaughter supu for Xmas.Being the only man in the house I was
given the mantle of slaying the chicken and defeathering....my sister Grace
Adhiambo was given
the duty of operating it and roasting it and then mum was always at... it
making the best soup out of it for xmas.
This xmas we
were all disturbed supu looked dull and never jumped as she does..may be she
knew the time had come for the knife.So on 23rd we passed a bill that we had
rared this piece of meal for 4 months and that we must slaughter her.In my
escapade I had secretly weighed "supu" she had a whooping 12kg and
there was no way I was going to wait for this xmas.
Days
rolled...hours counted and seconds ticked...morning of 25th Dec we would make
sure the supu doesn't go out...i would take the chicken and tie it's leg or put
a big wreck (osewe) over it go to church come back and slaughter it.A duty I
was we prepared to take on supu.
We went to usual
Nazarene Church came back and I was so happy tht the day had finally come...in
new clothes and shoes I quickly folded my attire and headed for the slaughter.
Alas.
Supu was there
her green tearful eyes staring at me...she had some cold shoulder to show me
ofcos and looked straight in my eye.i must have lost the courage as I lifted
her slowly on my arms for slaughter where I had laid some leaves and prepared a
dish to take some blood on a bowl...who doesn't like it?
Shocked I was.
After whole of
these 4 months without laying eggs this Dec supu had decided to lay eggs.What
was happening sunk my world and I had to deliver this news to mum and sister
and our neighbour Irene Anyango that supu had laid eggs.
We all ran to
the scene and a small *kamkunji* was arranged where we repealed section 2A of
our xmas bill and replaced it with a few option.
Supu had escaped
the knife in a swift way...she laid 18eggs and hutched all of them.Having over
18 chicks to take care of was the best job our family had.we built them a
homestead and that was the beginning of the love my family had with
chicken...by 2014 we had a total of over 45 kienyeji chicken all descendants of
*supu* we stopped slaughtering chicken and started raring them.
Sad news supu
life was ended shortly one evening as she was crossing the road on August 8th
2014
Whatever sent
the hen across the road