Don't be a Chicken

When danger is lurking – or simply when a shadow creeps over the grass, or the wind rustles some leaves -- the chickens do not scream THE SKY IS FALLING and become cartoon actresses. They stand still. If they can make it, they’ll sprint for home, but if they’re in a vulnerable spot in the compound, they stop. It’s nature’s way of keeping them alive.

Recently I looked out the window and saw all the chickens in a freeze-frame. The new pullets were in a corner of the coop. If there’d been a bed, they would have been under it. Our pretty buffs were statues along the wall and our black beauty was out of eyesight. What the heck? I flung open the door and walked to the fence. Nobody moved. This was not right.

We saw a hawk circling in the sky a few weeks before. A year ago we would have marveled at it in the bird bath outside my office window. Now, anything larger than chickens is a threat. When we first saw him, our chickens were enjoying a free-range stroll and they sequestered themselves under some thorny bushes. They didn’t come out for hours and I couldn’t go in. So that’s why a shadow spooks them. It’s danger in the sky.

There he was, sitting on the block wall fence, right above the chicken coop, blending in with the gray speckle of the block! I didn't see him at first, because he was perfectly still. For a few seconds, I froze, like—like a chicken.

He slowly turned his head and looked at me, then he dropped down on the other side of the wall, accompanied by the tiny sound of a rustling sheet. Perhaps he wasn't after our little reds after all, but the new kittens in the neighborhood.

Now those Rhode Island Reds are bigger than the other hens…too big to be carried off by a predator. Our neighbor was concerned, because his cat likes to patrol at night, but by that hour the girls are all tucked up in their roost.

I am surprised at how quiet and still danger can be. We sometimes say, hey, don’t be a chicken. Well, hey, sometimes be one.