Rural Routes: Chickens, small-town life come home to roost in Chaffee, Missouri

Jimmy Garrett looked on as Randy Horrell entered the pen and set about wrangling a few chickens into a bin.

He said he wasn't entirely sure how Horrell had come to learn the chickens were for sale; there weren't any signs up. He speculated the business had come through word-of-mouth. Chaffee is, after all, a small town. And, he added, his mother, Lottie, would not hesitate to strike up a conversation with a stranger about the pleasures of raising her eclectic little collection of chickens.

"These chickens are her pride and joy," Garrett said with a smile.

"I've lost some of mine recently," Horrell said, hefting the container and three chickens into the back of his pickup. "So these are just to replace them."

He pulled a folded $10 bill from the pocket of his overalls and handed it to Garrett, who thanked him. The two men lingered a while, enjoying the brisk November afternoon before Horrell drove off and Garrett gave the birds another once-over before heading inside.

Jimmy Garrett, left, and Randy Horrell talk after Garrett sold Horrell three chickens Thursday at Garrett's home in Chaffee.TYLER GRAEF

"My mom raised a little bit of everything growing up," Garrett said. "And she's been at this house here about 5 years. I've been here about a year."

He said he enjoys helping her tend to the birds.

"We got a few Rhode Island red, a few white chickens, there's a little bit of a mixture," he said, making his way to a pen across the yard. "There's wyandottes, dominickers, little bit of everything."

The most impressive looking, he said, are probably the fluffy-headed silkies.

"They're a Chinese breed, and they're curious. They'll come right up to you," he said, as a gaggle of silkies came to the fence to investigate. "But just watch ol' Caesar there, the white one in the middle, he's very protective."

Silky chickens are seen in a pen Thursday at Garrett's home in Chaffee.TYLER GRAEF

His least favorite, he said, is undoubtedly the turkey-necked chicken that roamed in the yard.

"It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen," he said with a laugh.

But even the turkey-necked one is amusing, he said, and there's a timeless pleasure in having a steady source of fresh eggs.

"The ones they lay are green and brown," he said. "When it's colder they don't eat as much, don't lay as much. But when it's warm, we probably get 10 to 20 a day."

And these days, it's a seller's market for cage-free eggs.

"This lady here behind us, she likes to buy them from us. She comes in from Chicago and she'll buy every dozen my Mom will make as long as she's here," he said. "She gives like three or four dollars a dozen."

And in the end, he said, caring for chickens isn't difficult.

"They call them organic eggs," he said. "There's no chemicals, no anything like that. Just vegetables."

He said they mainly feed them cracked corn, but they're not picky.

"But they'll eat leftovers, you know if you've got scraps or something," he said. "You can throw it out there it's like a pig, you know how a pig'll eat anything?"

Then again, he said, the birds do seem to particularly enjoy one meal more than others. He shrugged at the thought.

"They like spaghetti."