Pecking Order

I remember asking my dad if we could have backyard chickens back when I was growing up. I thought it would be fun to have chickens running around. His answer: "They'll shit everywhere!"

That was as far as that went.

Erin has been raising three chickens in her backyard for the past few months or so. Normally, I am not thrilled about having pets at this stage of life, as the workload and every day commitment can be a strain--weekend trips, late nights and coming and going at odd hours can be difficult if an animal is relying on you back home for food and companionship. However, these chickens are pretty easy to maintain.

They stand ready at the gate of their coop to be let out to roam every morning. Her backyard is multi-faceted and full of different terrains--tall weeds, bushes, tilled-up garden, flower beds--anything a chicken would want. They spend all day eating grass, bugs, grubs, compost or bird food, which makes me quite happy as the less they eat of the stock chicken feed the more healthy and nutritious their eggs will be. It also makes us more environmentally responsible as grain feed involves lots of transportation costs and has a carbon footprint.

At first, they didn't seem to be as messy as my dad predicted. However, as the weeks and months go on and the longer the chickens peck around the yard the more prophetic I realize my dad's words were. I have left a pair of shoes there strictly for backyard use, if you get my drift.

It's also going to be a problem during the planting season of the garden. No issue with them walking around already-grown plants, but when the land is bare and we plant seeds, I have a feeling there will be some turf wars between us and them. Methinks they will have to be limited to a certain part of the yard until the garden gets a chance to grow.

I noticed that one of the chickens is treated poorly. When food is delivered, the others try to squeeze her out and keep her away. I intervene and try to establish justice, but there's only so much a guy can do. I talked with Andy about this, and he related some gruesome stories about pecking order. Sometimes chickens will abuse a single chicken so bad that it gets utterly depressed, deprived and even dies from the treatment. Then they move on to the next, most vulnerable chicken. His words have haunted me for weeks.

It makes me have some serious doubts about animal (and human) nature. I tend to believe that our God-given nature is a key to our personal growth. I don't buy into that ugly strain of Christian theology that holds that our natures are utterly depraved and that we must forcibly resist our innate urges in order to be good. I hold a more holistic, modern approach that we can work with our natures in harmony and outgrow petty issues. This isn't to say that we are rosy-cheeked angels at all times, but it does mean that working with our nature is the path to growth, not working against.

I've seen pecking orders in many groups I've been in. I was in a rock band a number of years ago. There was always one member who was "the problem." For a while it was our singer, until he left and then the new singer became the new "problem." When he left, the three remaining members identified someone else from among ourselves, then when he left and there were two of us remaining, I was targeted and I knew it was time for me to be outta there. It wasn't that we were trying to bully, but there was something about focusing our angst on one member to weed out who we perceived as the weakest link. The complaints about that person were always valid, too, but there was something about the way in which it was done that concerns me. It is also amazing that the whole group was able to feel very unified while that "problem" member was present, but when he left the remaining members started being upset with someone who they had previously gotten along with!

Had we reached out and tried to work together, we might have been able to stick together as a band rather that always weeding out people as the way to solve a problem. Had we been more driven in our mission--rather than directing our energy toward picking each other apart--we could have moved forward together.

And maybe that's the key--we do have some issues in human nature that we have to work with. We can pick each other apart, for better and for worse. But if we remember to focus that same problem-solving energy on our mutual mission, maybe we can work through stuff. In this band, we were not even overtly mean to these people, but our level of angst with them probably created an environment that made them feel unwelcome and made it hard for us to work through problems.

Just because we should work with our human natures does not mean everything is perfect in our human natures. It is probably more about redirecting the same impulses for good rather than for not. The person is not the problem-some behaviors are. We should still focus on problem, but with the goal of working through them rather than culling the whole person from the herd.