More on chickens
When we got our first chicks back in spring of 2020, my then-four-year-old daughter christened the lightest-colored one “Yellow Gooey.” As an adult, the first Yellow Gooey met an untimely death, perhaps at the jaws of Lily the doodle, but each tawny chicken since then has been known as a “yellow gooey.”
Last week, I realized that I wasn’t seeing either of our current yellow gooeys (still struggling to pluralize that) in the run. It turned out that one of them was broody again (see this past entry for context on that), but the other one was squashed into the nesting box with her broody sister, poking her head out insistently when I would open the flap door.
I decided to carry both of them back into the run so they could get some food and water, but I was dismayed to see that when I dropped the non-broody yellow gooey in with the other hens, they immediately started chasing her, sending her into a panicked frenzy. She tried to hide her head under a crate, but they kept pecking at her back, so she flapped her way back into the coop and into her nesting box refuge.
I realized then that the bullying must be the cause of the bald spot on the arch of her neck. It was beyond me why they were targeting her, though. One of the yellow gooeys (they look pretty identical) definitely used to be the top of the pecking order! Was there some sort of showdown and she lost? Is she sick and they can sense it? Why has the flock turned on her?
Chickens can be pretty merciless animals. If one of them dies, the others will eat her. I’ve had some challenging times integrating younger chicks with an older flock because they have to reset their pecking order, which they do by, well, pecking at each other, often drawing blood.
After consulting a friend, I separated the bullied hen from the flock, placing her in a dog crate next to the run, so the other hens could see her but not get at her. This also gave her a chance to get some food and water unmolested.
After a couple days of this, I let all the chickens out into the yard to get some grass and bugs, leaving the door to the run open for them to go back into the coop at sundown. I knew that Yellow Gooey would also head back into the coop, and I was hoping that she would be welcomed back into the flock.
But when I arrived home from choir practice and shone my phone flashlight at the coop, I saw poor Yellow Gooey standing alone on the ramp, shut outside of the light-sensing electronic door that lowers 15 minutes after sunset. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t even let her in the coop! At least she could have a peaceful night’s rest, since it isn’t cold yet.
The next day, I yet again extracted both the broody Yellow Gooey and the bullied Yellow Gooey from the nesting box, this time placing both of them in the dog crate, hoping to also break the broody hen of her urge to hatch [unfertilized and thus unhatchable] eggs.
Yesterday I once again let them all out into the yard to roam for an hour before dark, and I was happy to see that all of them made it into the coop for bedtime. Progress, perhaps?
I didn’t see the bullied Yellow Gooey come out into the run for nourishment when I fed the chickens this morning, which wasn’t promising, but she was at least walking around the coop as I retrieved the eggs, as opposed to jamming herself into a nesting box for safety. When I let them out this evening, she dashed out of the coop, through the run, and into the yard, staying far away from the other hens but still enjoying some fresh greens.
This particular chicken lesson is still in progress, evidently. Tomorrow I will try to look that Yellow Gooey over more carefully to see if she seems sick. I’ll dig out A Chicken in Every Yard from the bottom of the book stack on my bedside table and see what wisdom I can glean. I might even give her some more time in the dog crate so she can have as much food and water as she wants.
My poultry drama has taken place simultaneously with Israel’s escalation in Lebanon and continued bombing in Gaza, and the juxtaposition is deepening my witness.
In the case of my hens, the first step in the conflict was to establish safety for the one being hurt. She needed a safe space, food, water, and rest. Dealing with the aggressors meant that I had to protect the target.
What could be any different than our country’s military strategy in the Middle East? Not only are we not protecting the targets, but we are funneling billions in aid and weapons to the aggressor!
I have long rolled my eyes at how western media always refers to “Iran-backed” Hezbollah but never says “U.S.-backed Israeli ‘Defense’ Forces.” And just a note that Iran doesn’t even make the top 15 countries in military spending…but you can guess who makes up a whopping 39% of global military expenditure.
It’s been one of those weeks when cynicism and doom just seem the most appropriate. People have been posting videos of entire towns washed away in floods from Hurricane Helene. Sections of I-40 I used to drive when traveling from North Carolina to Oklahoma are literally gone. Yet instead of funding climate change resilience and mitigation, our country is spending billions to send bombs that are causing both genocide and ecocide.
Mainstream Democrats, including our presidential and vice-presidential nominee, continue to toe the Israel line, calling for a ceasefire yet continuing to send the fire, as my friend likes to say.
And here I am crying, feeling like a failure for not making enough money to meet expenses, waiting on a food stamps application that’s been “pending” for over two months, and in general just over this whole living-in-late-stage-capitalism thing.
Y’all.
Are we chickens?
Is this pecking order shit really the only way to live?
It’s not, and I know that. Deep down, I think we all know that. All of the major religions of the world assert that there is another way. Jesus himself proclaimed a radical shift in power and his first followers lived cooperatively with everything held in common.
There are many visionaries of our time who are imagining and practicing new ways. There are grandmas and young queer folk and families with young kids all creating loving communities in new and old ways, shifting our notion of security away from money and toward relationships.
This world is overwhelming. My actions are a tiny drop in the bucket. But, well, the last week has been nothing if not a reminder of the immense power of many, many drops of water. Nothing can withstand that mighty flow.
Today, I co-facilitated a vigil centered around saving al-Makhrour. It was a small and intimate gathering, but one of the attendees reminded me about how important it was for even a small group of us to gather together, witness, and grieve. I realized I have been keeping a lot of news at arm’s length because it is just so much, but when I’m witnessing it with others, we can carry it together. If we cry together, then our tears can become a stream that leads to a river that builds in power and strength.
The world is a lot right now. I am leaning on the chickens to remind me how to focus on my own drop of water:
To establish safety and support establishment of safety for those in harm’s way.
To imagine and implement a world outside a pecking order, just like Jesus, Gandhi, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Buddha, et al have done throughout time.
To remind all of us caught in the clutches of pecking order politics that we are not locked inside the run, so to speak! The grass is greener, and plentiful, outside that miserable system. We can share!
This is a we-are-in-it-together thing. When integrating flocks, common backyard-flock wisdom recommends putting a middle-of-the-pecking-order hen with the new flock for a little while. When the flocks are united, she will serve as a sort of facilitator for the integration, since she has some power within the original flock but is also not defending a top spot. All that to say – we can’t do it alone.
So, today, I invite you to join me in a few ways we can be drops of water that together turn into rain that nourishes the world we want to grow.
Call your senators and asking them to support the arms embargo to Israel introduced by Sens. Sanders, Merkley, and Welch. Find a script here: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/tell-senators-no-more-weapons-to-israel/
Make whatever gifts work for you to three mutual aid and/or local efforts in places affected by war and climate disasters.
Light a candle or incense for all those children affected by the harms of boarding schools in the U.S. and Canada and learn about the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition as part of observing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, or Orange Shirt Day (September 30).
And tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, continue to live into the power of drops of water. You are not alone.