Arriving at the coop, I was asked to wait a minute before entering, so they could turn off the security system off so I could enter without trouble. The chickens were quiet and still at first, but it wasn’t long after two ladies and a fox were in the coop when they started moving and clucking.
I was first shown a “ghost chicken,” one that was white but I was transparent. “At night he is white,” I was told, “During daylight, he is see-through. He is an Astral breed, one of the rarest I mentioned.” There were also a couple chickens that glowed, “Night-lights anyone? ... They are first-generation ancients, another rare.” She explained that the odds of just any egg laid being an ancient were about one in 3000, “Those two were born the same day, less than an hour apart. So we have special chickens.” She went on to explain that there isn’t much glow in 2nd-generation ancients, and 3rd-generation ones have just a little shimmer, “with each generation removed from the parents, the glow fades.”So how much do these chickens cost? Often, eggs can be bought for 75L or less. But rarity and demand can make some very expensive. One coop owner told me she saw an Astral egg on sale for 3,000 Lindens. They then showed me a black chicken egg, “It’s a perfect black. That thing is worth about 8,000 right now, since it is a perfect Spectrum reading.” They then showed an egg that was one color on the upper half, and another on the bottom, “There’s an example of a New Wave. Eggs that are two colors are called New Wave. Wings will be one color, and the tail of the bird another color.” New Waves are not normally too expensive, “but again, it depends on the colorings. If you get a perfect egg of two perfect colors, you got one heck of an expensive egg.” White was described as being in great demand.
They then took me to the bachelor coop, where there were six roosters alone in their pens, “We had a hen here, but she was a killer. She killed every mate we tried to put with her. So I got rid of her.” Asking about their aggressiveness, I was told, “The males have anger readings. They get angry and in the mood, daily. That’s why you have their toys for them.” The pens had some round objects that at first I thought were eggs, but were actually toys for the chickens, “They keep them happy and gives them a way to vent anger if they can’t breed.” Going on, one explained, “By age 3%, yo u need to separate them ... just like real-life, you have to separate the roosters, or you will have a fight and dead chickens.” She heard of one guy whom staged cock fights between roosters. Normally, the chickens can live about a year.It was explained Sion chickens learn to recognize their owners, and respond to people being around, “They will actually push your av around. ... If I get into that first pen in the other coop with my three breeders, they will all three shove me around the pen.”
“If you wish, we have a hen about to lay,” I was told at one point, “You can see the next generation being born.” So we went near one pen, with the hen resting on a nest and one of the owners staying at the edge of the pen, “This is as close as we can get right now, or her hen freaks out at being watched and she won’t lay. ... They can lay 2 eggs a day, though I’ve seen more than that. ... In her younger days, one of *******’s hens laid four a day or more. Which reminds me, I need to get more egg protectors after this (laugh).” When I asked about them, “The stands to put the eggs into. They protect them so you can take then into inventory and pack them for sale. If you try to take just the egg, you kill it.” She explained that the programing of Sion chickens and eggs make them react to common objects in your inventory as sharp objects, “it kills them to be taken back into (inventory) without being in an egg protector or transport box. That’s why when Linden Labs returned chickens to people, they got massive complaints. That killed every single chicken they returned.”
I was told the first of them to raise chickens had built the coop herself to house them, “We needed more room, so she added a second story to it. The original design is the bachelor pen. ... this is a combination of her stock and my own. But together we have about 40 chickens.” We continued to wait for the egg, “Waiting for them to lay can be tedious, but I’ve watched ever single hen of mine have their eggs.” “It can take, on average, 30 minutes for a hen to lay.” Eventually, the egg announced itself: sionChicken egg: “I'm a new egg! To change my name, touch me and type: name “Breeding has it’s ups and downs. You get attached, and there are the griefers. And the fact is, these chickens are very close to the real thing ... they have their own unique personalities, they have their needs and can be killed or get sick, etc.” Asking about their getting sick, “they can stop eating for some reason, and starve. They can get killed by another chicken, but most of the time can be revived ... if another chicken kills them. Sometimes they simply die from ‘old age.’ “ Chickens killed by weapons or return to inventory cannot be revived.
Unfortunately, Sion Chicken owners have found themselves the targets of griefers. There have been cases of people killing the chickens off because of supposed lag. Most however are simple cases of malicious mischief. It had gotten to the point where chicken killers were infiltrating Sion Chicken groups to find their next targets, “I got word yesterday that a group has to stop sending ads because people are using those ads to find places to kill livestock. ... It makes it very tough because you don’t know whether to advertise and take your chances or to be silent.”
“Sadly, we had two murdered by an unknown griefer,” they told me, “before they were able to safely be brought here under constant guard.” The coup was protected by a security system that booted out unauthorized entries. Not far from the coops was a small memorial to the two roosters killed, “I made that when she told me they had been killed and erected it here.” They then took me to another place, following their adding me to the access list, where a small mound had a couple toys over it, with a couple black roses laid over them, “This is the exact location of the coop. Where the mound is, and leavings is where their pens sat side by side.”
They had taken down the coop when one found something next to the property line, “It looked like an egg, until it peeped at me. That’s how I found Blessing, Cooper’s last son. The eggs can’t hatch with the (static) rim around. Well, Blessing went against that entirely. I found him hatched right there. First thing he did was try to shove me, then he came over here.” “A rebel from birth (laughter).”
“When Sion made (the chickens), he did a wonderful thing for a lot of people. Not only does it help people to learn about agriculture, it shows people the responsibilities of being a owner/breeder, and animal husbandry. And just how much these things do become like family. And when something like that is taken away, it really does hurt because we grow attached. ... there are others just like me that have been grieved. Sadly, it’s all too common.” “It is becoming a favorite pastime of troublemakers it seems. I hear daily of people leaving chicken raising, due to such actions.”
Because of the griefer trouble, the two women asked me to withhold their names and the locations of the coop & memorial.
I had forgotten to ask about the price of feed. As it turned out, it’s a bit costly. Checking on Xstreet, the cost was 240L for 4 bowls of chicken feed, which will keep a single bird fed for a month. If one plans to raise a bunch, it can become very pricey.
“They become part of your family, literally.”
Bixyl Shuftan