The chickens grew fast and furiously, the Kuk-kuks looking like young ostriches, and the red ones that they had bought later not far behind. They all looked like hens, but as they grew and grew, we realized that there was only one small hen between the lot.
I have never seen such big claws on a chicken, that is the Kuk-kuks of course, and they were quite a ferrocious lot, chasing the few red cocks all over the place, while, as the cocks grew into manhood, the little hen, whom the kids called Kleintjie ( little one) had to really duck and dive to evade the attentions of the hormone driven males.Then the cocks started on their crowing practising, and as they were really, in my eyes, a stupid lot of overgrown muscle men, they had no bally idea of when it was morning, and when it was time to go to sleep. So, two o'clock am, a lot would start making this croaky, wheezy noises that I'm sure were supposed to be manly crowing, but had us all shouting abuse at them in our sleepy voices, that did not stay sleepy, but ended up in good and solid yelling and not too nice language. What made it worse was that this lot woke up the whole neigborhood's macho males, who tried their best to show the youngsters how to do the thing!
Soon the age old segregation thing stuck out it's neck, and the poor reds were chased off the premises, and had to be very lightfooted to evade the attacks of the Kuk-kuks, who really kicked them into a bloody mess, and just would not allow them near the coop. The poor Kleintjie was looking like a little ghost from trying to outrun the lusty males, so she was put in a different coop to first grow up a bit more, and a few more red hens were incorperated.
The dog Bubby was now fully grown, and I could not get rid of my fear for him, although the children tried to asssure me that he was not dangerous at all, but as I have seen him now on two occasions going for Nina, and then he had a go at Jan, I could not be satisfied.
Then one afternoon I was busy in my room when I heard this commotion at the Kid's place, and then the car starting, then reversed out into the road at breakneck speed. I tried to make out what was going on, but before I could get out of my gate Jan pulled away, scattering stones and dust, and disappeared doen the road.
They phoned me after a while to tell me that the dog had attacked the seven year old Andreas without any provocation, and they were on their way to the hospital.
All of us was in a state of panic, fearing the dog, but the next day Jan took him to the vet to be put down, and they all cried for their lost pet that was in my eyes no pet at all. Luckily most of the bites were on the child's hand and arms, but as it could have been so much worse.