Chicken Choker Tales
by Jeannie Travis
by Jeannie Travis
Chicken chokers have a ‘real’ name…I just can’t remember what it is. They are all over the country I reckon….hubby ‘fished’ for them when he was growing up in KY. If you look around in your yard in bare spots you might see little round holes about the size of a pencil eraser…..Clean edges. Get a broom straw or thin grass stalk about a foot long and drop it into the hole….If it starts waving around or backing out of the hole you know the fun is on. What you have to do is jiggle that straw gently up and down till old mister worm gets angry and tries to push it up and out of his home. JERK it out and he will usually come with it, jaws firmly clamped onto the straw. It’s a dirty white color with a hump up near his head which is a reddish brown. Squash him or do like we used to do…stuff him back in the hole for another try.
A few years ago..well, several, I was hanging out clothes, admiring the lovely white clouds against an unusually blue sky ….Watching the bluebirds fly about….Looking a the many jet trails, day dreaming about where all those lucky people were going……All was serene….Then as I walked back over to get some clothes to hang up I happened to see a chicken choker hole in a bare spot. Wow ! Hadn’t seen one of those since I was a kid ! Wow ! I raced over to the fence, pulled a long grass stalk and go right down on my knees and started ‘fishing “. About then I began to wonder what the neighbors thought of a woman my age with her butt in the air and her nose to the ground ! Then I shrugged and did the only sensible thing ….fished that sucker out of there ! *grin*