Mean Girls

I found two dead chicks in the coop Sunday morning. I donae believe their violent end was a result of hunger since the corpses were intact and there werenae signs of any predator break in. I am pretty convinced the murders were perpetrated by the pullets, possibly more from curiosity than pecking order instincts. Chickens arenae the brightest critters in the farm yard. I suspect the all-knowing adolescents donae even recognize the chicks as being the same species they are.

I may never know the mysteries of what goes on in a feather brain, but I do feel a fearsome need to protect the remaining five chicks. As I flustered about immediately after discovering the corpses, the Mean Girls took over the brooding cage. They looked like teenage girls bragging about their first bras as they gazed imperiously around the cramped-for-them quarters while the chicks cowered frantically in whatever hidey holes they could find around the too-big-for-them open coop. I quietly reached over and flipped the door of the cage closed. Careful what you wish for, Ladies. You might get it. They were a bit humbled by the time I let them out of the brood cage at the end of the day. I think. The fact is, I was busy trying to get the chicks to re-enter the brood cage so that I could secure them safely for the night. Their comfy little brood cage wasn't as appealing to them as it had been the night before.

Yesterday morning I found the pullets in full bully formation in front of the brood cage. It is hard to believe they were the same size as the chicks a few short weeks ago. The miniature Bantams now tower with menacing superiority over the chicks. Their bodies may be full size now, but their adolescant wisdom remains more baby than adult. In a fully integrated flock, there would be a brood hen or three between the children and the babies. I haven't the patience or form for playing the part, so I acted on the righteous indignation that flared in me and evicted the adolescants from the coop. Perhaps the greatest surprise I have gotten from this experience is that free-ranging doesnae come naturally to chickens. Chickens LIKE their cages. A lifetime in a commercial egg farm cage might be over the top, but I'll bet even those chickens don't flee the cage as easily an my human craving for freedom had me believing, when I take the time to think of ^it^ at all as I pull my dozen eggs from the grocery shelf. My previous flock was raised in an urban environment with cedar privacy fences to create all the free-range space chickens seem to crave. Here in all this comparatively wide open space, the chickens treat that open space like a source of never-ending threat. The pullets clung miserably to the outer walls of the coop all day, with an ample supply of mean girl indignation over the usurpers pecking and scratching freely in their territory. I felt like the meanest mean girl in the coop. I think I am glad I donae speak chicken well enough to know what the teenagers were calling me through the hardwire net of the coop walls.

By sunset, the pullets had pulled their attention from the usurpers in the coop to their own cravings for safety and rushed me a good 20 feet or so away from the coop. It was the furthest I had seen any of the chicks from their cages. It was the first time since the first discovery of the corpses that the pullets had noticed me at all when I wasnae kicking or slapping them. Who are you and what have you done with the sweet chicks who wore your feathers yesterday? ? ? The pullets followed me back to the coop, but far more in the spirit of submission than the comaraderie we had enjoyed before the discovery of the corpses. I had stillnae decided whether I was going to allow them to spend the night in the coop, but impulsively left the door of the coop open while I settled and secured the chicks in their brood cage for the night. The mean girls huddled cautiously outside the door. I watched passively as they moved efficiently, one by one, from the coop door to the ladder of their roost.

'Tis time to sneak a peek on the dynamics of the morning. Will I find a flock or two warring chick cliques?

Note:

I still don't know that the adolescants are pullets. Just hoping. . . Ya cannae accurately tell a rooster from a hen until they either crow or lay an egg. No crowing, Ladies. . . Just the eggs and nothing but the eggs. Just hoping. . .