It might sound crazy and like a huge stretch for many but if you look to the chickens, you can become wise. I'm not saying I am wise, I feel I needed more time with them. Watching chickens makes you better at reading and understanding people. You can just about predict what they will do next in many situations. The chicken coop I thought I left behind plays out daily in this "civilized" human world. From grouchy medical lab assistants and snarky store clerks to meek hotel housekeepers... I've seen their personalities and been exposed to their issues all before, through their chicken counterparts.
Just yesterday a rude and caustic lab technician became a squawking, unhappy, fat hen who goes around fluffing up her feathers, annoying the flock over issues the rest of the flock was apathetic about. Twinkie could be that way. She would become so angered at the sight of a squirrel across the yard who was doing it's own thing. The fact that it was there just made her crazy and she had to draw attention to the fact that she was irritated and wanted all the hens to know this. What happened was they'd move on to another part of the yard leaving Twinkie and her tantrum behind. The calmer they were, the more annoyed she would become, she wanted everyone to be as upset as she was. Eventually she got her head pecked by one of the others and Twinkie remained slightly subdued but simmered.
That same scene played out with a lab technician yesterday. The calmer I remained during her rude outburst, the more inappropriate she would become until she went too far and I pecked her head, so to speak. I can bet that the rest of her day at the office was a game of chasing co-workers who were apathetic or annoyed with her non-issue and who probably could not wait to get home and leave her behind.
Flocks, whether it is made up of all hens or includes roosters and baby chicks, are a society and all societies are met with the same challenges. It isn't any different in the poultry world. You have the top 1% in the coop, you have the bitchy and unhappy bird that just doesn't like their place in the pecking order and is all around unpleasant, you have the daily struggles of give and take, gangs, theft, jealousy, sex, murder and even rape. I can say I have seen at least one example of each in my coop or with my Grandfather's flock growing up.
When I discovered I was pregnant I immediately thought of Ducky, the best mother hen there ever was. She was always a sweetheart of a hen who was so depressed after having gone broody several times and still no fertile eggs to sit on or baby chicks to raise. Once I got her a fertile clutch she happily sat there and began to coo. However, a few days later and she was the crabbiest most unhappy hen I had. She loathed any disruptions to her nest, she just wanted to sit in the dark and looked depressed again. I worried that she was becoming ill but a week later and she was perky again, then terribly grouchy again, then so happy she cooed, then so awful she bit me...mood swings.
I went through a similar experience my first trimester. Happy to be a mother yet having to deal with morning sickness and hormones and mood swings for the first time. Then there were doctor's visits to make and things to read and research and foods to avoid, foods to eat, vitamins to take...the transition to pregnancy was not easy despite how happy I was.
My second trimester begins today and it feels so much better. But I did a lot of sitting on my own nest of a bed in the dark. We'll see what motherhood brings. Ducky spent one week covered in baby chick shit, they'd poop all over her. She looked so disheveled and didn't take a dust bath until the second week when she was showing the chicks how. Her figure had lost that cute, round, mama hen plumpness because for 28 days she was on the nest and wouldn't eat as she had. It's what they do. Hens not up for the job can die if the environmental conditions clash with a decrease in food and water. She walked around looking like a deflated balloon. But then practically over night she was a gorgeous mama hen again. Things to remember, Ducky's motherhood: