QAPLA! (Klingon for “Success!”)

Hen and Chicks Day Two

 

The hen took to motherhood like a duck takes to water.

 

I introduced the six chicks to her during the day today.  While she was sitting in the rafters protesting being moved from her usual brood box to the new (safer-for-the-chicks) location, I placed the chicks under a heat lamp in her new home, then sat outside for 90 minutes watching the goings on inside from the screened-in hen entry doorway.

 

About ten minutes after I put the chicks in, she came down from on high and sequestered herself in a corner of the hen house while the chicks were eating, drinking and moving around checking out their new surroundings. She watched them with interest and began to cluck to them a little.

 

When I could see she was relaxed and totally settled into her space, I opened the side door right next to her. She stayed put, looked calm and comfortable, and didn’t try to bail out, so I could tell it was a  good time to introduce some chicks to her.

 

I carefully grabbed four of the closest chicks (they were completely unafraid and not trying to get away from me) and placed them under the hen’s left wing. She let me do that without stirring at all; she just raised her voice a little–which I interpreted as mild alarm–as if questioning what I was doing. I told her, “Here are your new babies. You’re a beautiful momma.” Then I shut the side door and went back to my “watching door” to see how she would respond to the chicks I’d placed beneath her wing.

 

She began to regard the little fluff balls under her wings not by lifting her wing to look for them, but by gazing in their direction and clucking softly to them.  One of them came out and starting cheeping loudly. It pecked at her beak and she pecked gently back–an acknowledgement, not a threat.

 

One of the chicks who hadn’t been placed under her wing came over to investigate. At first, the hen–although gentle–wasn’t as disposed to welcome it as she was the one who popped out from under her wing. But it began to cheep at her and persist, so she decided it must be hers, too, and she began to cluck at it.

 

Not long after the remaining chick went over to her and gained entry near her tail feathers.

 

I continued to check in on them every half hour or so after the first 90 minutes, eventually extending my check ins to every hour. The last two times I checked in on them–at 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., all six chicks were tucked underneath her and she was happy as a clam.

 

She finally gets to be a momma hen after brooding several clutches of (infertile) eggs (no rooster!) with the fierce determination of a warrior bird.

 

I knew she’d make a great momma, so I was eager to try.  I’ll take some pictures tomorrow and share them here…

 

Side Note: I’m well aware that in school we’re taught to designate a human as a “who” or a “he” or a “she” and an animal as an “it” or “that”.  (Example from above written “properly”: “One of the chicks that hadn’t been placed under the hen’s wing came over to investigate.”)

 

For the record, I don’t buy this unseemly separation of the species.  To me, animals are “who”s, not “its” or “thats.” I think it’s a false distinction.

 

The term anima is Latin. It means “soul”.  Several centuries ago–when men decided to allow the vivisection (slicing and dicing) of often-still-alive animals for medical research purposes–the Roman Catholic church fell in line, changing their tune and declaring other animals  soul-less so that torturing and mutilating them for scientific purposes would not be viewed as desecration of a soul.

 

Just because the church changed its tune doesn’t make it right. The church still has a Blessing of the Animals Day. What is that, if not acknowledgment that animals, too, have souls, and that they have many of the same reactions that we do: fear, pain, alarm, affection, loyalty.

 

So I will always give critters their due. They are “who”s to me, not “its” or “thats”.

 

Am I a vegetarian or animal rights advocate? No. I am an animal welfare advocate. I acknowledge that we use (and often misuse and abuse)  animals and that we eat animals. I just do my best, always, to treat the animals in my care as souls and fellow sojourners on this planet. I do my best to avoid animal-based foods when I know the animals are intensively farmed and cruelly-raised or handled. I do what I can to minimize the cruelty that humans perpetrate on animals.

 

I’m not a zealot. I do have enormous respect for animals’ intrinsic needs and desires, hence my desire to get my hen some chicks! She has nourished me with her eggs; her chicks will, too. I will never eat her or them. I will never misuse or abuse her or them. They will live out their lives here long after they’ve stopped laying eggs. They earn their keep. I love them!

 

If you think that’s weird, that’s okay. I get that. But a lot of people agree with me, too.

 

I was raised on a cattle ranch. I’ve known critters up close and personal my whole life. If I have a soul, so do they. I can’t look into their eyes without seeing a kindred spirit in there…