Search for the African Chicken

In 2001 a.d. the Great Chicken Quest began.  It would never be compared with the legendary quests of human history; the search for the Ark of the Covenant or for the meaning of life; nor would it hold up against the remarkable achievements of those explorers searching for new worlds or circumventing the globe in those ridiculously tiny wooden craft with canvas sails.  In a personal way however, it was significant to me.

Why, you may wonder, would someone search for a chicken? It wasn’t just any chicken of course, so perhaps a more complete explanation will help readers understand.  The protagonist of my story was a student, you see, attending a school of higher learning whose educational standards were rigorous. His chosen course of study was the biological sciences, with majors in Zoology and Entomology.

The final-year Zoology curriculum included several practical laboratory assignments.  One of those assignments required students to submit, for grading by the end of term, a complete, mounted skeleton of a vertebrate.

By laying out this assignment the academic staff of the Department of Zoology was realizing two important objectives. On the one hand students would learn the basic skills of disassembling an animal and putting it back together again.  The second objective was to build up the collection of animal skeletons necessary to help teach vertebrate anatomy to future students.

It was from the department’s existing collection that our student sought inspiration.  What was needed? Most specimens in the collection were mammals; understandably, as mammals are numerous and tend to have strong bones that could be cleaned and assembled without too much difficulty.  Specimens of fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds were scarce.  All might pose difficulties, he thought. Fish and amphibian bones were tiny and delicate.  Reptiles would not be easy to catch and the thought of disassembling a snake and putting it together again was regulated to the “not” category pretty quickly.

So it was that our intrepid student went home for a ten-day holiday break and sat at the dinner table with his family.  A freshly roasted turkey was set before him to carve.  “You’re the zoologist son; you should know how to carve a turkey.”  And so he did.  The inspiration came to him almost instantly. Why not a turkey or a chicken?

The next day he drove to a rural poultry farm and asked for a whole chicken, complete with feathers, head, feet and entrails.  In fact, he asked for two chickens, as close in size as possible.  While thinking about the assignment he realized he may need spare parts. What would happen if he overcooked the first chicken or lost one of the tiny rib bones?  Yes, spare parts were definitely required. While the attendant withdrew two whole chickens from a freezer, our student paid his $1 each (this was 1964 after all!) and went home with his bird specimens in a cooler.

The next few days were busy.  His father’s barbeque grill was requisitioned and two large buckets of water were brought to a boil over the fire.  The chickens were plucked, and one was put into each bucket.  After  many hours, during which neighborhood dogs  seemed to bark more frequently and become more restless than usual, most of the skin, internal organs and musculature had softened and been removed from the murky brews.  Clean water was added, along with a small amount of caustic soda which would sterilize and bleach the bones.

Without providing the clinical details, the eventual results were two piles of bones; some almost too small to find.  All were removed from the soup and laid out in the sun to dry.  Over the next week, the painstaking task of getting all the pieces in order and drilling tiny holes in the bones, so they could be threaded with fine wire, absorbed every minute of his time.  The bones of birds are hollow.  This makes them delicate but also presents a way to thread the wire through each one.  Some pieces, like the tiny ribs and bones of the feet had disintegrated or broken, and the spare-part chicken proved its worth.

Finally the entire bird skeleton was mounted on the top of a wooden dowel standing vertically on a stained wooden base. Afresh egg was removed from the family refrigerator and the contents were blown out of a small hole at one end. The inside of the shell was cleaned with caustic soda..  The egg was placed under the chicken, and a neatly printed label giving the species (Gallinas gallina), date (1963), and the creator’s name was applied with suitable adhesive. The chicken project was complete.  In due course the student’s specimen was well received and placed into the Department of Zoology and Entomology collection at Rhodes University.

A word of caution; anyone considering putting together a chicken skeleton should understand it is not as easy as one would think. Do not try this at home.

Fast forward 37 years. I was returning to Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa for the first time since leaving in 1967.  My wife and I were staying with old friends while on tour of South Africa for a few weeks.  A few former classmates from the 1960s joined us for dinner.  In the 1980s the old Department of Zoology and Entomology where I had studied in the 1960s, had been moved into a completely new building and had been expanded to include the Institute of Freshwater Studies, the Department of Microbiology, and other research departments.

During a wine-induced lull in the conversation at dinner I dared asked the question, “Does anyone know if my chicken is still being used, or if it still exists?”  One lady said she thought she had seen it, but added that much of the old Department’s collection had deteriorated or been damaged in the relocation 20 years earlier.  I vowed to begin a search, which quickly was referred to as the “Chicken Quest,” and decided I would not give up until the fate of the chicken skeleton was learned.  Was it still there, helping to educate the new generation of young biologists, or was it to be just a fond memory?

The following morning we walked across the campus of Rhodes University and entered the impressive, modern, three-story Biological Sciences Building.  Friends from the night before met us and we began to search the ceiling high glass cabinets in the museum.  After a few minutes it was obvious there no chickens in any of the displays.  Eventually we were shown to a large empty conference room with a long board-room style table.  At the far end of the room was a wall to wall array of wooden shelves and closed cupboards. We methodically opened each of the cabinet doors. It was here, we were told, that the most frequently used specimens were kept for easy access.

Running out of hope, I twisted the latch on a middle door and opened it.  Stepping back I must have made a strange sound because everyone turned toward me when I leaned forward and carefully withdrew my chicken from its dark sanctuary.  At last!  It was there, still in use. 

For a 37-year-old chick she was in pretty good shape.