Perhaps you’ve
heard the term “old biddy.” This phrase
has several meanings, one of them being a chicken, specifically a hen that is
over one year old. It isn’t an
affectionate term, but it is a descriptive one.
We just gave away our old biddies a couple of weeks ago; we were tired
of the drama. Most animal groups have
hierarchies and the pecking order in the hen house is one of life or
death. That’s right; biddies kill the
hen that’s on the bottom socially. This
just seems to be what chickens do when they get older.
The outcast
hens don’t appear to be any different than the others, but after a few days of
getting pecked away from water and food they start to run. They run everywhere and from everything,
sometimes with a flock of pursuers, sometimes without. Then they hide. They won’t eat or drink. They just wedge themselves in a tight spot
and stay there. This, of course, means
death unless they’re rescued.
This year
there were two such hens. Neither one
would have lasted another day in the hen house.
One disappeared after the first day in the great outdoors. We found her
body later, wedged in between bales of hay; she’d been too afraid to even see
the food and water put in front of her. The
other hen stuck around though. We named
her Lop because after all, it’s hard to ignore something that comes running at
the sight of you and follows you around like a puppy, talking the whole time. It took a couple of days and lots of good
food for Lop to gain her self-confidence again.
In fact, she didn’t make any noise for weeks. But as her feathers grew back she made friends
with the dog, got on speaking terms with the cat, and even persuaded the
heifers to let her warm her feet on their breakfast hay. Though she thrived outside in winter
temperatures of nights well below zero and daytime temperatures only in the
teens, she couldn’t survive the social dynamics of her own kind. Even with her
newfound confidence she turned her back on the offer of returning to the warm
chicken house where she would be safe from predators. Now that the other old biddies are gone
though, Lop decided the hen house looked all right. She lives inside again, apparently
happy with the group of young hens.
Now I
realize I’m anthropomorphizing here by attributing human characteristics to
chickens. I see a common denominator
though, between people and chickens: social fear.
Fear
doesn’t let us think things through.
Fear justifies our over reactions.
Fear talks us into protecting, at all cost. Fear creates tunnel vision so that we can’t
see open doors. Fear turns those around
us into enemies. If unmanaged, fear
sinks us into behavioral patterns that put our own perceived well being above
all else.
By the way,
the fact that I am writing on this topic is rather ironic. You see, I am irrationally afraid of
chickens. Not long ago Mom found me
holding Lop at pitchfork point because the chicken had me backed into a
corner. Fear had turned the friendly,
newly confidant chicken into my enemy. I
know first hand: fear justifies irrational behavior. 