The thing you need to know about all of this, the thing that got me into all this trouble in the first place, is that chickens will sit on anything when they get broody enough. Anything. Duck eggs, goose eggs, turkey eggs, lizard eggs, egg shaped rocks, anything. Chickens arenât smart. If it looks vaguely like an egg, theyâll plant their feathery arses on it and wait.
I noticed that there was a bigger egg under one of the broody chickens, when I checked. Of course I noticed, it was twice the size of the others. But I have geese. I figured it was a goose egg sheâd found and stolen. It was about the right size, and I didnât take it out to check the colour because that particular chicken gets very protective of her eggs. Iâve already got a scar on one hand from trying to get eggs away from her. I didnât want a matched set.
That was a decision I regretted the moment I went out to feed the chickens and found a little blue-and-silver dragonetâs head poking out from under a very confused-looking chicken. The poor thing kept shifting around and looking under herself in a bewildered way, like she didnât know what to do next. This particular chicken is a good mother, and sheâs raised clutches of ducks and geese without any trouble â sheâs even resigned to some of her children swimming â but this was too much. She didnât object when I carefully reached in and fished out the little dragon.
It was so tiny, then. It fitted in my hand, with its little head peeking out one side and its tail looping around my wrist. Cute, too, with its big eyes and little snout turned up towards me.
That was when I made my second mistake. I decided to feed it before releasing it. Dragons are innately wild creatures, everyone knows that. They canât be tamed. People have tried. The eggs are abandoned as soon as they are laid, and the dragonets hatch able to hunt, so they donât even bond with their mothers. So just feeding it a little shouldnât have been a big deal. It should have gobbled the meat and fled as soon as I loosened my grip on it and it saw the open sky.
It didnât. As soon as Iâd fed it, it fluttered up to a sunny window ledge and went to sleep. I went about my work, figuring that itâd leave in its own time.
By noon, it was sitting on my boot, squeaking pathetically. I wondered if maybe it was confused by the farmyard â they usually hatch in mountains, if the stories are right â so I took it back to the farmhouse with me and fed it again when I ate, then took some time away from the fences I should have been mending to walk it up to the hills. I found it some nice rocks, with plenty of lizards and beetles and suitable prey for something that size. It pounced on a beetle almost as soon as I put it down, and when I left it was crunching happily.
I hadnât walked a quarter of the way back before something hit the back of my boot. The little dragon was holding on with all four claws, and when I looked down it squeaked pathetically. If possible, its eyes got even rounder.
Listen, you donât make it as a farmer if you just let orphaned baby animals die. We hand-raise calves and lambs and ponies, set chickens to sit on abandoned eggs, or put them under the kitchen stove or by a fireplace. You donât make a success of farming if you donât value every animal. A good shepherd will spend all night looking for one lost sheep. So despite what was said later, it wasnât just sentiment that made me sigh and pick up the little thing and carry it back to the farm. Â I am a good farmer. I donât let orphaned babies die just because theyâre a little work.
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