I had trouble with a chicken.  You may recall. Goldyneck was a bully, always harassing the little silkies – chasing them, snatching at their back feathers with her beak, intensely and recurrently bothering them. This is the one I’m talking about. She’s pretty, you have to admit. Who would guess she has such a mean streak in her?

I can’t have a bully.

She’s big, but not as big as the bigger girls in the other coop, so I banished her. I put in her with them for a while. They sneered at her. Snubbed her. Ostracized her. You wanna see something funny – watch a big hen puff her chest out in the direction of a smaller (clearly inferior) coop-mate with a gesture that has who-do-you-think-you-are? written all over it.

She hid under the coop trying to steer clear of them. She was clearly at the bottom of the status heap. See her in the upper left-hand corner? She won’t be able to get near that feeder until the rest have had their fill.

I felt sorry for her and put her back with the silkies, hoping she had learned her lesson perhaps? But chickens don’t learn. Their brains are very small. In no time she started the bullying again. I seemed to have a no-win situation on my hands. Maybe someone could just take her away?

Solutions are often not that easy. No one volunteered.  No one came. I was stuck with her. But the bullying annoyed me. I saw it every day. First thing in the morning she started in with the chasing, snatching, bothering. In one decisive moment a couple months ago, I put her back with the big girls, come what may.

The square footage of their run is more than twice the recommended (generous) amount. The others eventually wander away from the feeder. Bugs are to be found here and there. I throw leftovers in randomly, plenty for all. I knew she wouldn’t starve. But she sure was getting a lesson in pecking order. They still made her sleep separately.

What’s a girl to do?

Before I tell you what she did, we must be clear that this is a female chicken. She has no external evidence of being anything else, and I am not going to look further.

If you are not familiar with chickens, let me review the basics.

Status Pecking order is a real thing. We get the very term from chickens. They are good at it, unabashedly cold-shouldering the weaker, smaller, lesser among their flock. I have even seen murder, no kidding. In one fell swoop, Goldyneck went from the top of the order to the bottom. I do not fear for her safety, but it’s her lot. She asked for it.

Eggs Hens lay eggs. Roosters don’t. Roosters fertilize eggs. If you have a rooster in the mix, you will get chicks eventually. If you don’t have a rooster in the mix, you still get eggs.

Noise Hens cackle. Their noises make it seem like they have something caught in their throats. Cackling has its charm, in the evoking-sympathy, is-that-really-the-best-they-can-do sort of way. Roosters crow. They don’t just crow in the morning, the way storybooks present it. They crow all the day long! I find crowing annoying.

Roles Hens are good for eggs, wonderful eggs, and entertainment (they are very funny looking). Roosters are good for lawn ornaments (some people think the chicken picture is not complete without a strutting cock), protection (some predators, not all, might think twice if there is a big rooster defending the ladies in non-protected, open territory), dinner (some people eat them) and fertilization (if you want chicks down the road). I want/need nothing that roosters offer, so I have only hens.

What Do Hens Do All Day? Mine scratch around in the hay and the dirt, looking for anything edible. They eat pretty much anything. They dust themselves in the dry sand under their shelters. They sit to rest and lay their eggs. They get wet in the rain and look ridiculous.

It’s not a rough life around here: Frequent kitchen scraps. No predators to worry about; (very secure enclosures). No bravado males running around after them always trying to jump on them to get, you know, theirs.

Back to Goldyneck. She seems to have come to terms with her now-permanent location among the big girls as well as her low status. She finds her food and finds a place to lay her eggs.

But this hen, this would-be dominatrix, this bully-taken-down-a-notch, does not cackle. This hen decided to sing!! By singing, I mean crowing. I mean I have a hen that crows! This hen’s got pluck!

She starts in about 530 a.m, before the sun comes up. At first I thought I was hearing my neighbor’s roosters. It’s wintertime and the leaves are down and I reasoned that the sound had to be traveling from Tracy’s coop to my ears. But I was wrong. Early one morning the noise seemed too close so I went out there to investigate. I watched her myself. Thankfully she does her crowing strictly in the early morning, for a few minutes only, and not at all during the day.

She’s some kind of chicken.

You won’t let me chase the silkies, she says. You won’t let me show them how much better I am. You put me in here with these big girls who make me eat last and sleep alone.

Fine. I’ll show you. I’ll call attention to myself another way. I’m cleverer than any of them. I’ll do a thing that you can’t take away from me. I’m special in my own way. And it won’t hurt anyone.

You gotta hand it to her! Hens don’t crow when there is a rooster around, but apparently, rarely, they do crow among just their sisters. Goldyneck had something to prove, and by golly she’s proving it on a daily basis!

Let us all sing in our own way, especially when we can’t do the thing we really want to do 😊