every day is a good day
Chickens come in an endless varieties of colors and patterns. Your image of a chicken might be that of a plain white or reddish brown bird, but they come in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors and amazing patterns. These feathers are the back of a Sven, a Swedish Flower Chicken rooster.
And the colors and patterns from some of the other chickens. If you need inspiration for a design, look at some chickens.
Hens like to lay eggs in soft, quiet nests. Straw and hay make nice bedding for nests. This time of year, there is an endless supply of tall, green grass. I cleaned out three of the nests and filled them with freshly cut grass to see if the hens would like it as a bedding material.
They aren’t filing any complaints with the management. And their eggs look really fresh laid on green grass.
I’m not surprised. Back in 2010, Sunflower made a nest in tall grass in the backyard behind the propane tank. Chickens have an affinity for thick grasses and brush. It makes you wonder if instinct has embedded in their little brains, images of green grass which they long for, even if they are born and raised in crowded broiler sheds.
Chickens know by instinct to run for cover if they see any large bird in the sky. They will go running for shelter even if a harmless heron flies low overhead. Somewhere in their brains, is the instinctual knowledge that big things flying overhead are not good. Perhaps millions of years of evolution has imprinted images of good things as well as scary things.
Anthropomorphizing, attributing human characteristics to animals or objects, is a no-no. Somehow, even though we humans share common ancestors with our fellow animals in our evolutionary past, we’re supposedly so different that we’ve magically developed characteristics which fellow animals don’t have.
What about alektoropomorphizing, attributing the characteristics of roosters to humans? It’s the time of year when I need to thin out the roosters for the sake of the hens, so I’m thinking about roosters a lot. This morning I butchered my fourth one this week. There are at least another five more to go to bring sufficient peace and quiet for the hens.
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I swear, watching roosters grow and behave has given me a keen insight into the behavior of straight men. Their behavior is so much like roosters that it’s uncanny. This drive to impress the ladies, possess them, lord it over other men, compete and fight, it’s exactly what roosters do.
The common perception is that we humans have evolved such complex brains, that our behavior can’t be explained by instinct. And yet, why do so many men behave exactly like roosters? A comparison of male behavior across animal species, including us, could be illuminating. No doubt there must be a genetic basis to explain much of this similarity.
I think we’re fooling ourselves when we think instincts have no effect on us. Why is it that civilizations keep repeating the same story over and over again? It may be that our instincts keep us enslaved to play out the same story, generation after generation. Perhaps a genetic evolution is required to allow us to act out a different story where we figure out a way to live in peace and harmony.
My chickens spend a lot of time in the woods. They find plenty of things to eat on the forest floor, and low branches make great places to hang out and gossip.
These chicks are just one day old. They hatched yesterday morning. We moved the hen and chicks into a small barn for some peace and quiet. This morning when we opened the door for her, she was ready to show them the world.
She’s got them on a full scale life enrichment program from the get go. You’re not hatchery chicks so it’s sink or swim, little ones! Let’s find some worms. Move those legs. It’s not nap time yet.