Monday, July 20, 2020

Urban Chickens in Uganda

From Ria Meronek:

... close up of Co-co, the head rooster at  Lot 3...
I am still amazed, after reading your blog post, that the chickens are still all there.

I thought they would have attracted some predators, ones that would have made short work of chicken dinner.

Like a lynx or fox or even maybe a raccoon.

Chickens can wander.

When I was in Uganda I was always curious about the urban chickens – just there on the roads, and lots of them. I asked my cousin one day how the chickens knew where they belonged, and also what stopped someone from coming along and just taking a chicken.

He didn’t have any answers but then told me the story of the time he was driving and hit and killed a chicken – a rare occurrence. He was with several of his Ugandan workers and they told him to stay in the car. My cousin said it was very entertaining to witness the negotiations that went on between his workers and what he assumed was the chicken’s owner, to determine the value of the chicken. But then, maybe it was not the owner, only someone looking to make some money. My cousin said it was worth every penny, or rather shilling, that he ended up paying, which is fact was only a dollar or two. I can’t remember if he told me what happened to the hapless chicken, or if there was anything worth salvaging for a pot. We almost hit a goat once (I was sure we had hit it, but he assured me we had not). There were a lot of goats roaming the streets too.

Ria

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