The Political and Social Perils of Being a Chicken

I have learned a great deal about chickens in the past year. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would have a flock of chickens. A friend gave me two and now my group has grown to six.

Chickens are very social beings. They can be moody and temperamental. They dislike newcomers and outsiders; they treat them with disdain, snobbery, and just plain painful techniques. They are quite stupid, yet much attuned to any differences in their environment. Chickens, much like a political party, have real issues.

My two newest members to the flock, Buffy and Fluffy, moved in last Sunday. The resident members did not want change; they were compliant second term Bush chickens. They eyed the fence divider in the outdoor pen and looked at me beseechingly. They most certainly did not want any foreigners crossing the border. These chickens consider themselves the best source of local eggs and had no interest whatsoever in the idea of outsourcing to untested cheap foreign labor. Their tiny little eyes urged me to be more diligent about checking the fence and keeping the newcomers out. If they had been able to verbalize it ,they would have asked for more border patrols. The girls puffed their feathers and bak-bak-bakked nonstop without really saying a thing nor clearly expressing the agreed upon existing party strategy.

Buffy and Fluffy were adequately cowed although they put their best beak forward. It was their very first day and they weren't making friends well. Poor Buffy was even denied proper housing to the public nesting facilities; to her shame she was forced to lay an egg out in the outdoor open pen.

Buffy and Fluffy were devastated. They had such high ideals and hopes. They had dreamed of integration with the existing flock, only to be shunned. They had the naïve idea of showing the rest of them that it would be fine to stay in the coop during the day sometimes, as long as you are facing outwards. They had eyed the rest of the habitat and had picked out new, wonderful places for dirt baths in the sun. They were even willing to share the wealth.

The chickens eyed each other viciously across the wire fencing. Buffy and Fluffy wondered where their next free scratch food would come from. The other girls worried about the quality of their health care going downhill if just anybody and every body were treated. The oldest matriarch of the group (she had once survived baseball sized hail outside) remembered the lean times as a pullet. She worried what would happen if the newcomers were allowed to share the delicious corn and chicken feed her owner provided. "Will there be enough?" This was a constant afternoon worry. It made her peck at nothing in particular furiously. She refused to even consider what two additional chickens would do to the lovely local bug delicatessen; good bugs were hard to come by as one grew older and slower.

At four o'clock that afternoon it seemed there was no hope for talks or any diplomacy. The established chickens dug in their claws and began to have small thoughts about their individual roosting positions. Each and every one of the four had fought long, corrupt ridden campaigns for the location of their roost. They had paid their dues well to me, an egg at least five days a week unless they were on extended molting vacations, expected in chickens (or so they believed). And of course there was that dead of winter time off just because there wasn't enough sunlight in a day for egg production. They loved that time of year, no eggs to worry about and full set of feathers to party in. The entire way of life as they knew it was threatened to the sitting chickens.

Fluffy and Buffy for their part simply worried about the future in general. They had never considered not enough food and health care in their childhood home, this was a new and startling tiny thought to the chickens.

At 6:17 PM the sun was well down in the sky. The entire worries of the chickens had been settled. I had come out and integrated them all to the coop, taking the decision away from all the chickens. I reassured the chickens I would see this situation through and provide food, no matter how bad the corn situation was. I had reserves from other chickens, huge farms in fact. Out of kindness I didn't mention the overseas countries and their own worries about the corn market. I had faith that the world as a whole could overcome corn failures and huge deficits. Given time I figured it would all bounce back and repair itself.

The chickens as a whole seemed to accept my promises and they did not adopt socialism in the coop. They realized they would need to up egg production for a revolving, healthy corn economy; and they also acknowledged it would not be healthy to peck and wage war on one another. They simply settled in and went to sleep on their respective roosts.