I was okay with getting rid of the chickens. My new goal was Savannah. We sold them to a guy in Eupora through the Tradewinds Classifieds. They were laying hens by then, quite valuable, but we gave him a good deal and agreed to deliver them since we had to take the turkeys and a few cats to friends in Columbus. Eupora was on the way.
I packed the birds in frozen chicken boxes from the grocery store. They had a divider, air holes, and a lid. A chicken fit real nice on each side. Nineteen boxes in all. Eupora wasn’t much more than a flashing light and a gas station. That’s where we met the buyer and followed him to his place, way deep in the woods. Turned off one dirt road onto another then another and another, until finally, he stopped in front of a tiny trailer. Next to it was the biggest pallet chicken coop I’ve ever seen. Bigger than where he lived. Said he built it from pallets he got at work.
I’d bring one box over to the coop and he’d open it, grab a bird by the leg, hold it upside down, and say, “That’s good-looking bird,” or, “Ohh wee, she’s nice.” He commented on every bird like he was watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Excerpt from Care & Feeding by Chela Gutierrez.
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