Bantis and Canaries

Family stories age and ferment until we are no longer sure what part is truth and what has become an urban legend. My grandmother had some banti chickens. One day my grandma opened a jar of her canned cherries but the seal had gone bad. Doing the logical thing she dumped the cherries out on the ground and the bantis ran over and ate the cherries right up. About an hour later she noticed that all her bantis were laying dead in the back yard. She surmised that the cherries had killed them. Being the good practical farm women she was she quickly plucked them while they were still warm. She laid them all out by her back door intending to finish the butchering after she got dinner started. A couple of hours later she came out to finish her butchering and found all her bantis alive and running around with no feathers. I guess the cherries were just fermented and the little bantis had just passed out from being drunk. – There you go. Now that’s a chicken story.
My cousin tells another story. My Grandma had a canary that wouldn’t sing. The legend goes Grandma would get really frustrated at this canary, and say to the canary. “If you don’t sing I am going to pull your head off” One day my cousin came to visit Grandma. “Where’s your canary Grandma?” “He’s gone, pulled his head off.” I always wondered why she scared me.