Mean Girls in the Chicken Pen

I am watching 9 chickens in the pen interact and I’m sorry to say they are behaving like schoolyard bullies. There’s one small black chicken - smaller than the others - with a funky pompadour, Bock Obama. She’s perhaps a little hyper-active, scurrying more than strolling. Excess energy? Is she HDD or ADD? The bigger chickens chase her away when she gets close to the food or water or wherever they are congregating. Like  Mean Girls it seems that Florence HENderson (a big brown and white striped girl) and Yolko Ono (white with black spots) are the gang/pack leaders and where they go, the other chickens follow. When Bock tries to join along, she gets pecked away!

I wonder if the nature of living beings is to create power structures? And then I recall my schooling and this whole Darwin thing - duh!! The strong will survive. Every dystopian novel I’ve been reading from Hunger Games to Divergent and Matched is about the power structure of society and the need for weeding out the weak so the strong can ensure the continuation of the species. Is that what is happening here? Or are they just annoyed with the pompadour and being cruel because she looks different? 

As I continue to watch, I re-think my comparison. Bock is pacing back and forth and scurrying to take advantage of the free space while the rest of the “gang” is in another corner hunting for worms. “Walking the line” is what they call it in prison I think. This is Bock’s exercise. And perhaps her wish is to get out of the pen, her prison, where she is essentially trapped inside with those that disdain her. At least in school, you go home at the end of the day, hopefully to a family that loves you. In prison (or, in this case, the pen - hey - isn’t that when they nicknamed prison?), Bock is stuck. She cannot get out and run away from the bullies until I open the gate. Yet yesterday, when I opened the gate, she remained inside the coop and spent her “free time”, while the other chickens enjoyed free ranging, laying her own egg. She chose to be by herself and enjoy some peace. That’s what I would do. Maybe that’s why I identify with her? Why I feel her pain and why I get angry at the other birds? 

Perhaps I’m relating to the schoolyard when I was the quiet one who never was good enough for the “cool” kids, I wasn’t a jock, I wasn’t smart enough for the brains, I didn’t know I was creative and goths didn’t exist yet!  However, I was lucky to not be different enough to be picked on; I was just ignored. Poor Bock keeps trying to fit in and gets pecked (literally) and ignored the rest of the time. Will she ever fit in? She’s not going to get bigger - no Ugly Duckling becoming a Swan here. She is beautiful but doesn’t know how to work it. Maybe she’s in a “don’t hate me because i’m beautiful” space? I can’t see the chicken’s minds - only their behavior. And I feel Bock’s pain. I am only here one more day before I go back to sitting for dogs and cats and will be forever wondering what happens to Bock and The Hens. 

Read more stories about then pets I enjoy on my website at http://www.FernsPetHouseSitting.com.