Gooooooooooooood Morning SuperForest!
As SuperForester Melissa has mentioned in an earlier post, here at Zero One we’ve got a little chicken village. Currently, chicken village has nine lady inhabitants. One survivor of the original group of four we bought, three wild ones we caught on the land, and five new all-white birds make nine chicks in all.
Since we don’t have TV here at ZO, we watch chicken TV instead. I get up every morning around seven, throw on my kimono, walk outside, slide open the little door to their coop, and out come nine bumbling little peepers, each hungry for their breakfast. Their food is a mix of cracked corn and layer pellets, a mix of grains and vitamins and nutrients. I supplement their diet with coconuts, which they love. Avocados fall from the three trees in chicken village, and there is lots of grass and mulch to scratch for bugs in, and so I’d say that they are pretty happy chickens.
That said, there is definitely a pecking order. The biggest chick is our Buff Orpington, Miss Beff, a grand yellow hen. As she is physically the largest, she simply uses her bulk to position herself wherever there is food. None of the other chickens are large enough to dislodge her. She doesn’t really peck anyone, she seems rather secure in her superiority, size-wise. Second in size is Spotty, a wild chicken we caught as a tiny chick and have raised with love ever since. Spotty is the enforcer, pecking hard the back of any impudent chicken who would dare try to eat before she and Beff have eaten their fill. Next in size are the two wild ones, Ginger and Eagle, who in turn peck the five white chicks. As the five white ideals (which is their breed) are practically identical, we have yet to name them. We call them simply “the Five.”
During my hours spent happily watching Chicken TV, I noticed the pecking order as soon as we added Eagle and Ginger to the flock. They were the littlest, and Spotty would peck and chase and harass them. When the five ideals were added, they became the targets.
Even before we had the chicken flock I’d noticed wild chickens fighting for scraps of coconut around the base of our coconut chopping stump.
Now here’s the funny thing…
You would think that the pecking order is a set thing. A law of nature. Tooth and claw. I eat, and then you eat, but only after I as the biggest have gotten all I can handle. Does this sound familiar? It sounds like a pretty accurate description of life in America and by extension the entire world.
But I’ve found that I can eliminate the pecking order entirely if I wish.
I have found that the pecking order exists only when there is one source of food. If I’m squatting down with my outstretched hands full of chicken food, and I’m the only source of chicken food in the village, then Beff and Spotty will eat first, then Eagle and Ginger, and the five ideals will scrabble around picking up the flakes that fall to the ground.
If instead of concentrating the power, sorry, food, in one place, I instead open the food bucket and immediately throw a few handfuls of food on the grass around me while I fill up the multiple hanging chicken feeders, then the pecking order disappears. The chickens simply spread out and eat what is available.
Got that? One source of food or power makes it so everyone has to cue up, and it’s survival of the biggest and most savage. Many sources of food means that there is no squabble. There are no food lines. There is no fighting. Everyone has enough.
Scarcity results in a pecking order. Abundance creates equality and peace.
Life in America is a pecking order. Life on the Earth is a pecking order. If we all start gardening, growing our own food, scarcity disappears. Pecking orders disappear and life changes for everyone for the better.
You can learn a lot by watching chickens!
Love to All,
Jackson
All photographs courtesy of Melissa Snyder
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