23/12/2008
There’s a definite pecking order where I live. First there is the big cock of the roost, 2 enormous yellow feet, long neck, red comb, glittering black-ringed yellow eye, fancy tail feathers gleaming metallic blue and green. He is too big for the others so they all defer to him. There are 2 smaller cocks with even more beautiful tail feathers, but they are not of the same clan.
Then there are the 2 mother hens. Large birds, very motherly. One has 3 chicks, one has 9. The 3 chick one takes precedence over the 9 chick. She chases that family away and her chicks get first choice of pecking. They both are fiercely protective and shelter their chicks beneath their bodies and wings. All of these take precedence over the 2 or 3 scrawny bantams, who are last in the pecking order and get chased away. It is a wonder they can find anything to eat at all.
I crushed some peanuts for the 9 chick family and spread them on the floor. They fell on them ravenously, pecking furiously, in a few minutes every little speck had gone – it was as if a powerful vacuum cleaner had sucked the fragments all up.
Their eyes are so sharp they miss nothing. They can distinguish between the smallest piece of potential food and dirt and rubbish.
The 3 chick hen is light brown, plump, mottled and attractive (similar in profile to a Grouse) but aggressive. The 9 chick hen is a greyish/white tone, slightly larger, and more peaceful and motherly than the 3 chick. Both the hens protect their young bravely from approach – from children, adults, other chicks and hens, cats and dogs.
The pecking order does not depend on physical size, volume of sound or numbers. It does not depend on how hungry the chickens are. It depends on size of brain, inherited genetic intelligence and affiliation or allegiance.
The 3 chick mother hen (light brown mottled ginger) is smaller than the 9 chick hen. But she is more aggressive, more intelligent, and most importantly is allied to the cock of the roost who is the father of the chicks. This gives the mother precedence and priority in the feeding order. She drives the larger grey mother hen and chicks away with vicious attacks. She gets choice of what food there is. If she chooses to move somewhere else, the other chickens move in. I notice there is even a pecking order in the CHICKS. In the 9 chick flock, 3 are white, 3 are brown/black, and 3 are black. They tend to group together with their siblings’ colouring, and even within these sub groups are differentiated by intelligence. The 3 white are more intelligent, the brown/black are next, and the black are least intelligent.
I notice that even if I deliberately give the smaller hens and cock something to eat, they are still not bold enough to take advantage. They are frightened and intimidated by the presence of the bigger birds even if they are not actually near them.
This perpetuates the pecking order – it will never change until/unless the larger birds go away or are eaten for dinner.
The bird that was meant to be for my dinner last week was going off in the fridge. It did not look appetizing apart from the liver. I fed the raw meat to the mother dog who ate it all up – (she is at the top of the pecking order in this garden).
10 January 2009.
Sadly, when I returned to the house a week later, the 9 chicks were reduced to 6 and the 3 chicks were reduced to one.
30 January 2009
When I returned again a month later, the mother of the original 9 chicks had disappeared with no chicks left, and the 3 chick hen was just mothering a single survivor (an intelligent white chick who was keeping very close to its mother).
Even with a well-established pecking order, the predators will take you if you are not intelligent.
The Cow Bells. 24/12/2008
The cows are herded out on to the fields by cow-boys or cow-herds. They have wooden (bamboo or coconut) bells which sound musical in the sense of a wooden xylophone – 2 notes only, a hollow, rhythmic sound like large dried peas in a tin or a tightly-stretched skin drum. They can be heard from a long distance.
Wooden and hollow, from a distance the conglomerated sound of lots of bells actually ‘tinkles’ like the distant noise of rounded pebbles rolling down a mountain stream, with water splashing over them – a very serene, peaceful, restful, tranquil and calming sound.
Nearer, the sound is more like horses hooves trotting over a medieval cobbled street.
The Ginger Cat. 24/12/2008
The lovely young ginger cat keeps me company. He is just out of being a kitten – lithe and supple with a wonderful colouring. Mostly light ginger with a dark ridge running down his spine, his front legs each have beautiful darker ginger tiger stripes, his thighs are striped, his fur is soft, his underbelly is light mottled and his flanks are a lovely subtle ginger colour. His head is small and he has a plaintive miaouw which he uses a lot because he is hungry. I give him tinned tuna and milk, he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in the tuna – but it is reluctantly eaten in the absence of anything else. This cat is my companion over Christmas, he sleeps on my bed, and he loves to have his tummy tickled by my bare feet while he claws my sandals.