Mean Girls

Just as for irritatingly thin-yet-buxum teen-aged mean girls with Youtube-tutorial makeup contouring and physics-defying short skirts, "Pecking Order" is a very real concept for hens.

We all lay slightly different colored eggs. 

When we first got our (feathered) chicks, they immediately started sorting out who was going to be queen bee and who was going to most likely develop an eating disorder and credit card debt in an attempt to impress the other two. Our Rhode Island Red quickly emerged as the boss bitch of our backyard clique and she kept the other two sharply in line with sharp pecks to the throat and, I assume, more than one well-placed passive aggressive burn to the self-esteem as they were all foraging during the day.

"I don't hate you because you're fat. You're fat because I hate you."

Whatever. They worked it out. The other two quickly ceded dominance to the red-head, as must we all at some point in our lives, and seemed relatively happy at having secured their places in the social order despite having to wear the same outfits day in and day out. My own backyard version of the Plastics ruled their empty high school, unchallenged, in perfect harmony, bullying sparrows and teasing them about their weight while keeping them from the choice grubs.

Until the new girls arrived.

Unfortunately, even Rapunzel-golden blondes are no match for an angry redhead.

My chicken bible, "A Chicken in Every Yard," cautions that when adding new chicks to the existing flock, as in high school, they are virtually assured to have a hard time of it. A single chick should never be introduced on her own and even in pairs they should be old enough to hold their own before coming into contact with the existing flock. Obviously.

Hi! It's almost certain I'll by crying by the end of 7th period. 

When I picked up the new chicks for this year I made sure to get a pair (I would have gotten three but zoning restrictions in San Diego restrict homeowners of our size lot to a total of five hens). When they outgrew their brooder I moved them into an enormous cardboard box and into the garage, and waited for them to get big enough to hold their own--whatever that would turn out to mean--so I could move them into the main coop. 

The new chicks, a pair of beautiful blonde Buff Orpingtons, grew quickly but sort of topped out their teen-aged pullet size at around six weeks and didn't seem to be getting any bigger. Meanwhile I felt increasingly guilty for cooping them up in a cardboard box with no windows and no access to the sky, like an endless standardized test; so I moved the little chicks out into a separated section of the run during the day. "A Chicken in Every Yard" had said that some people find success in integrating the new flock with the old by giving them a good look at each other every day, but keeping the little ones safe inside a gated area. 

Please don't criticize me, I can still hear you through the bars.

I spent about a month on this doomed plan even though it came with the caveat from Every Yard's authors: we find this strategy to be expensive and ultimately ineffective. Ultimately, at some point the chicks have to sort it out themselves with no adult supervision.

"Damn. Chickens. Let's stay on this side of the island."

That point came after I moved the little chicks box outside once the weather turned warm and sunny, hoping to give them some fresh air when they were confined, and of course, as it must, it immediately rained. The cardboard box was damp and drooping and really not suitable for the little chicks to sleep in any more. "Every Yard" suggested waiting until the chicks were at least eight weeks, and preferably ten to twelve weeks old, and by the calendar my little chicks were two days away from their ten week birthday; but I worried that they were still so small, only half the size of the adult hens. Still, I didn't have another cardboard box and the existing one was just not healthy for them any more, so I took the plunge. 

I waited until nightfall and the adult hens had put themselves to bed on the roosts, as suggested, to gather up the little guys and gently put them on the roost where they would drowsily assimilate with the older flock while they slept. That was the idea. Hens are almost comatose once the sun goes down and their powerful roosting instinct drives them to seek the highest ground possible inside shelter and conk out, Ambien-style. I had often found my hens roosting on the top step of their little ladder if they didn't have access to get inside the coop, and they were like little feathered toddlers up past their bedtimes--just limp little un-resisting bodies that you could gently put into bed without waking them. I felt pretty confident with my ninja nighttime commando slumber party plan.

Yeah, no.

As soon as I opened the coop door with the little blonde chicks in my hands, the redhead woke out of a sound sleep, slasher-film-killer-come-back-from-the-dead-style, and leapt down, literally biting the hand that feeds her, namely mine, and then driving the freshmen out of her domain like an enraged prom queen. I thumped her on the head and went to go retrieve my little cowering pullets, and the redhead jumped out of the coop, nighttime terrors be damned, to follow us. "Knock it off!" I scolded her sternly, like the high school teacher I am, and picked her up and threw her back into the coop. I retrieved my little chicks but the redhead had jumped down out of the coop again, now flanked by the highlighted brunette Welsummer and the raven-tressed Maran, in a West Side Story triangle formation, ready to take me and my dedication to equal opportunity roost space on. 

For God's sake.

Okay. New strategy. I put down my pullets and gathered up the adult hens and threw them into their coop, shutting the door behind them so they couldn't get out. I went and got the pullets and craftily opened the nest box, through which I could see all of my hens sassily already settling themselves onto their roosts, satisfied after a thorough bullying. Normally I find my hens quite beautiful but they have never seemed so ugly than in that moment. I ungently shoved the Maran over from where she had settled herself in the very center of the nearest roost, and put the little chicks on the roost next to her. 

Sigh.

The redhead screamed with rage and leapt from one roost to the other and drove the little chicks down. One of the blondes jumped past me and out of the nest box, screaming and with feathers flying like a pulled out weave. The other one cowered on top of the waterer. The redhead, seemingly satisfied with the submission of the one on the waterer, ignored her and came after the one I was trying to prevent from escaping. Even with a thump on the head the redhead was undeterred and kept coming after her until the little blonde wiggled past me and found a spot on top of the feeder. The two little pullets squatted, terrified, in their corners, and the redhead stared them down with her baleful orange eye; but ultimately sashayed her way back into the coop and took her rightful place at the top of the roost. Goddammit, you little self-important alpha...

Hesitantly I closed the nesting box. The sound of the box shutting seemed to set the girls off again and I immediately heard the sound of a knock down drag-out cat fight. I jerked the nesting box open again to make sure the little chicks were still alive; they must have tried to get off their super low perches and hop up onto the roosts with the adults once the light was gone, because the redhead was chasing them around the coop and viciously backstabbing them. They finally made their way back to their little corners and she left them each alone, after a parting peck. I closed the nesting box again and the scene was repeated again, violently shaking the entire coop as the occupants screamed and shrieked at each other. My inner child started crying omigod she's KILLING THEM in there! but what steel I have developed as a pansy-assed urban farmer pressed back--they're birds. They will figure it out. At some point, they need to figure it out. 

I closed the nest box and locked it, and walked away.

I woke up at the crack of dawn this morning to let them out of the coop and scatter some treats on the ground while they free ranged with as much space as possible; the idea being that if they all had access to busy work , with their heads down next to each other, they would let the aggressions drop. As soon as I opened the coop door one of the blondes came shrieking out in terror with the redhead hot on her heels. The redhead chased her into the enclosed run and mercilessly back-stabbed her all around it before I could open up all the gates and let them free into the backyard, but once I got everyone into the open spaces they settled into their normal pattern of digging for bugs and pecking at blades of grass. Yes, the blonde pullets were again cowering, math-club-like, in the corner of the yard, and every time they ventured over into the sunflower seeds I had scattered the adults chased them out; but over the next hour they sort of found their own space and the adults largely ignored them. Once the adults had gotten bored scratching at what I'd thrown down, they wandered off to other areas and the little ones got to pick up what was left. 

"A Chicken In Every Yard" says that the pecking order of two integrating flocks can be completely upset, with the new hens assimilating into the clique in the bottom, middle, and sometimes even taking the boss bitch spot of the lead hen. I'm crossing my fingers that one of my little mild-mannered blonde nerds rises like a phoenix to throw off her glasses, shed her baggy clothes, and take down that redhead in an epic battle of wills that leaves her shattered, unhappy, and questioning everything about herself. 

I have confidence. 

(For more mean chicks, read "Mean Girls 2".)