I, like most animals am afraid of unknown things that appear to be dangerous to my livelihood. Charlie Baker scares me.
Like me, my chickens fear strange and unknown things; their acceptance of me suggests they do fine with strange and known things. A hawk or a raccoon though inspires mad caterwauling and a run to shelter (the chickens get scared too). We’ve had a few hawks circle low above the run, though so far the ladies have been able to retreat safely. Buff orpingtons are pretty tough looking, maybe the hawks are scared too.
The other morning as I prepped my bike for leaving the chickens started to fuss. I zipped round to the run to see if somebody was hurt. Seven were already inside; as I watched the only remaining hen nipped into the coop. I did a quick scan for a dog and looked up for a circling hawk, but saw nothing. Puzzled I glanced over my shoulder and noticed a hot air balloon had gotten pretty low. They were scared of a hot air balloon. But of course they were, and they should be. How do they know this isn’t some form of airborne chicken poacher?
Chickens were domesticated by humans 10,000 years ago or so (Adler and Lawler Smithsonian.com “How the Chicken Conquered the World”). Before that their feathered forbearers survived the jungles of south Asia in part by quickly fleeing predators. Primitive cave chickens that didn’t run away from predators quickly became dinner. Granted said cave chickens were probably not as succulent as the current models, and the roosters could have put up a good fight, but chickens are prey animals and jumpier chickens had more chicks.
As I mentioned, my chickens are mostly orpingtons, a standard barn yard breed. I wonder whether the chickens that have been selected for egg laying in captivity – like the leghorns one runs into in confinement farms would be quite as aware of flying predators. There’s an oft-repeated yarn about overbreeding in which roosters in a breed selected for meat for too long forgot how to attract the hens. One could imagine a similar fate for the jumpiness of chickens. After several decades of breeding for docility in confinement and lots of eggs, they might not know what to fear.
Sadly, jumpiness has not been bred out of me. Selection for humans of course is not nearly as managed as that of chickens and many of us are left with traits that may have been useful in the distant past but are now more of a liability. Sudden noises trigger my fight or flight reflex. Children playing with balloons is trouble. The boss does not understand this and it leaks through when she asks the children to “play” with balloons outside: “I don’t understand it either, but it bothers your father.” They’ll be thanking me when I save them from an indigent-boarder eating monster. I’ve got an eye on you Baker: we like public schools.
