A Note on the Pecking Order

A flock of chickens exists as its own atavistic colony. As if a chair in the orchestra, each personality plays a part in the construct. I remember watching our group of winter born chicks, all plunked down in our brooder with no adult birds to initiate them into a social hierarchy. Although I had experienced this upwards of 50 times before, it struck me for the first time what a wild experiment this is. Floundering babes just activating their basic survival instincts...they would eventually sort out amongst themselves who is who. One of these fluffy souls would graduate to be concert master, one to lead them all.
It's not so civilized as an orchestral arrangement, hence the designation of pecking order. Soon enough, before adult feathers had totally replaced the fluff, we observed particular birds edging their way to the feeder and using their beak as a tool to put another young 'un in her place. Her or his? As time would tell 2 of the 25 chicks turned out to be males. And in full maturity they were both just specimens of their breeds. But if you've raised a gang of chickens before, you know that two mature male personalities will eventually upset the applecart.
Charles manifested as a leader among chickens, his shiny grey and chestnut feathers fountaining off his back. Kapoosh was clearly subservient to Charles...whether there was a battle that we missed while tending to other parts of the farm or not. And eventually Kapoosh sought greener pastures out of Charles' wrath and each day would eventually wind up outside of the fence, encouraging the same three hens to follow him and forage the day away. Though I would occasionally make the time to corral them back into the coop and fenceline, more often they would beat me to it at the end of the day as the sun fell low and their internal clocks told them it was time to find a place to sleep. I'd find them perched 12, 15 feet high in the pines outside the coop...just how their ancestors the junglefowl slept, tucked in toward the trunk of a tree, high enough off the ground to avoid four-legged predators and inward enough to avoid aerial predators swooping in.

Like a burgeoning hive which doesn't have the capacity to hold its growing colony of bees, Kapoosh was deciding the coop wasn't big enough for the both of them and he wanted to establish a new pecking order-free range style. This just wouldn't do. Whether it was a wily predator or an eventual unforgiving winter cold, this arrangement wouldn't last long. And we weren't about to build a second coop to accomodate two male personalities. And so, though the hatchery did its best to send us 25 females, it was what it was. Two stowaway males were dividing the coop and it was time that their domesticators managed the situation.
Roosters are the most difficult farm animals to find homes for for obvious reasons. Though they do have a place in a group of hens, some folks paint them as just another mouth to feed...and an unproductive one at that. One day when I found Kapoosh leading his ladies entirely too close to the veggie wash and pack area in the barn, we made the decision that this rogue guy had to move on to 'another place'. To Rich, I had given Kapoosh more than one too many chances to find a way to get along within the group. It wasn't happening.
And so, May and Jack helped me to chase him into the coop so that I could sequester him with the least amount of stress. The three of us sat with him in the yard until we could feel his racing heart slow down. His body was heavy, a testament to his good foraging as Charles had been chasing him away from the feeder for so long. We took this opportunity to examine the beauty of a rooster's body, his ear holes tucked behind a tuft of feathers, his magnificently showy comb which moderates his body temperature atop his head was currently very warm as the heat of the day was releasing its grip. Wings are a marvel and I showed the kids his flight feathers and his shorter covert feathers which all cascaded in the most outrageous irridescent pattern: truly an impeccable design. His bright orange eyes blinked at us as we sat in the cool grass. This night is different for him.
Well, the ambiguous "he is going to a new place" seemed to work for the kids. The explanation made sense to May as she had been calling him a trouble maker for splitting the pack and running around like a madman. It made sense, but it still tugged at her heart strings to say goodbye to him. He was after all a submissive kinda guy, never showing aggression toward us, even while we held him captive in the grass. After refilling the sheep's water for the evening Rich walked Kapoosh over beyond the treeline and the kids and I headed in for the night, May a little weepy. Eventually she would ask where he went and if we sold him at market. And I told her he went to another place again; when she asked if it was another farm I said, something like that...a place where he doesn't have to share space with Charles.
The discord in the orchestral hall was no more. The three ladies, we'll call them first chair violin and others, found their seats once again. We haven't had fleeing birds since and Charles is seemingly pleased...large and in charge without a male threat on the periphery.
I can't help but liken this to our shuffling pecking order on the farm. We have had one fly the coop...alright perhaps that is a bit dramatic. May isn't gone, but when she is down the way at school, there is a new kind of music we play here. Jack is tapping into his independence as he can at two and a half. He has no competition for resources and so he plays with what he pleases without the pecking of an older sister to shoo him out of the way. The other day I smiled to see him playing with May's Tiana princess figurine as she drove his truck and trailer across the living room floor. The music is a little quieter, making me imagine what it'll sound like when it is just the two of us at home one day...like a lovesick singer songwriter and her guitarist :).