Philosophical lessons from Chickens

Bio-mimicry aside, we can learn so much about life from every living being in this world. My own journey with Max has been immensely educational that I wish, I remember every minute of the time we spend together but it's impossible. Even the blogging has its limitations, only thing tangible is the changes in me. Given the limitations of our memories, my metamorphosis has become my memory. The day when my world shatter's, the metamorphosis he bought about in me will be my solace and rescue. I don't look forward to that phase of my life.

Peter Lennox beautifully chronicles his philosophical lessons from his chickens.

"I've not heard of a functional magnetic resonance imaging study of mirror neurons in hens, but they do learn by copying each other. One hen makes a special, ungainly jump to get at the out-of-reach juicy berries - very comical. By the end of the week, they're all at it until the berries are gone. Next year, the technique is deployed straight away.

It's the same with finding out how to get over the fence in stages; a low wall, then on to the shed roof, along a bit then a short flight and a crash-landing in next door's garden. Once one does it, most of them can; the escape route will have to be sealed.

If you allow a mother hen to hatch some chicks (and not all hens are equally good at this - some just forget the eggs!), they suddenly develop a whole new vocabulary, teaching the chicks how to peck, scratch the ground and so on. Mother hens fuss endlessly; the chicks, initially clueless, learn rapidly. Chicks that have been reared in an incubator without a mother hen seem a lot more clueless, for a lot longer.

Hens that have lived the first year of their life in commercial intensive-farm environments are amazingly clueless when introduced to my garden. Sometimes they won't come out of the hen-house for the first day or two, even with the open door right in front of them. They don't know how to roost, and instead sit all night (and day) on the floor. Once they do get out, they don't know how to scratch and peck. However, once hens have become used to the outdoor life and the freedom of the garden, if they are left shut in the compartment (which is outdoors, with plenty of food and water), they insistently march up and down the fence or try repeatedly to fly over.

Now, I've hardly done much to refute charges of anthropomorphism - but am I bovvered? I'm not projecting human characteristics on to dumb animals - I'm saying I really don't see that much difference in their hopes and fears, behaviour and petty foibles. If one actually lives with chickens, it's a lot harder to treat them as mere objects.

Their preferences are astoundingly obvious, so what possible excuse could there be for giving them any less? If they like greens, why give them pellets? If they like sunbathing, why pack them into a tiny, noisy, smelly place with no natural light? If, as I suspect, the answer is something to do with the "efficiency" of food production, then the notion of efficiency is horrible, incompetent, brutalised and brutalising, and it's certainly not in the interests of chickens at all. And I'm not sure that our ethical notions are all that more advanced than chickens'.

All right, we could argue that they're only chickens, not people, and frankly, we're the top species so we call the shots - that's evolution, we're the winners and might makes right. So our notions of ethics extend only to "like me"? But how like is "like"? In the grand scheme of things, if we stand back and consider all the matter and energy we know of in the universe, we're a lot more similar to chickens than we are to almost everything else - all that rock and water, those suns, the endlessness of space and dark matter. Chickens are positively family.

In today's economic climate, efficiency and competitiveness are the guiding principles of business, of life; more product faster, while taking up less space. But are these concepts in our interests at all? Efficiency without ethics is psychopathic. And how much cleverer than chickens are we, ultimately?

So what do I get from chickens? Simple lessons like these: competition without co-operation is nonsense; you can't win by simply eradicating all the opposition - that's a pyrrhic victory. In life, winning really isn't everything - it isn't even anything. Taking part is all.

Reward and risk go hand in hand. The top cockerel has to take the biggest share of both. A flock can manage without a cockerel, but a cockerel without a flock is nothing.

A flock can keep you warm, inform you about dangers and advantages, and provide you with companionship; but you have to work at it.

Everyone should have a place in the pecking order. Strive for your place in life, not someone else's. Someone else's bread isn't necessarily tastier than your own. Envy will cost you dearly.

Don't let "flock-think" smother your own opinions; give yourself space to be an individual. Common sense is useful, but it's not always right. The society you're in may prompt you to behave badly, but only you can change that.

One could spend years on a moral philosophical quest, or keep chickens and treat them with courtesy and common sense. One doesn't just keep chickens, one lives with them. All chickens are not born equal, but they deserve equal respect."