My childhood's cannibal chickens and their armor-grade eggs
There was (and still is) a little tool shed in my childhood garden that also had a chicken coop. My parents had built the house before I was born, but had inherited the shed and coop from the previous property owner, who had kept pigeons there. The shed had been given the name "Valeria" (meaning "What are you laughing at?"), because the owner wanted something to match his brother-in-law's very fancy garden but didn't quite match the quality. At some point, I think when I was 8 or so, I convinced my parents to get some new chickens that I would take care of. Given the size of the coop, they had to be dwarf chickens. They had mostly free run of the garden, and occasionally the neighbor's when they found a hole in the chicken wire fence we had set up. Mostly we had them for the eggs. We tried eating one, but since it was not a youngling any more, it was rather tough. My dad and me did the killing together, not sure who swung the axe - probably him. The eg