Where the Heart Is

Home.  Some describe it in relational terms -- "where, when you go there, they have to take you in," according to Robert Frost.  For Dorothy, there was "no place like home," and there would be no relief until she could physically return there.  Emily Dickinson took the opposite view -- that "where thou art, that is home."  But for at least two of the chickens, Pliny the Elder got it right:  "home is where the heart is."  And their heart is very specifically located.

It started a month ago when the two Red Stars arrived.  Following conventional wisdom I settled them into the coup annex -- that modest secondary structure located in the general vicinity of the primary coop, but separated by mesh fencing to protect the new arrivals from pecking order battles that can mount into deadly escalations.  The idea is for the settled hens to become familiar with the new neighbors long enough to forget that they haven't always been together.

The requisite two-weeks passed and I introduced the Stars to the larger flock.  Afternoon passed without incident, but that evening as everyone was drifting inside the run, Lori noticed that one of the Barred Rocks was roughing up the smaller of the two Stars.  She heroically intervened and reestablished the previous segregation.  In subsequent days I united the flock during daylight hours, but returned the Red Stars to their annex for roosting.

Now weeks later, that's where it stands.  Days are spent in united free-ranging, but as darkness approaches the division emerges -- the older nine ascend the ramp into their coop, while the newer two drift over to the edge of the fence line near the annex and wait for me to help them home.  Safety is no longer the issue -- they are all perfectly happy in each others company.  Rainstorms have sent them all running amiably for common shelter.  They share the same food and water and nesting boxes.  They scurry around happily side by side most of the day.

Then it is as though dusk blows some kind of a whistle.  Regardless of the day's events, nightfall sends the older hens up and the newer hens over -- quite literally over the fence -- with help.  The two follow me over to the edge and squat, waiting for me to pick them up, one by one, and drop them into their own little corner of their own little world.

I'll admit that it's sweet.  I will also acknowledge that it's tiresome.  We'll be sitting on the deck, enjoying the free entertainment of the 11 pecking their way around the enclosure when, as if on a signal, the two groups move in their separate directions.  The Stars kindly but assertively look our way, as if to say, "We'd like to go to bed now."  And I comply.

It could, I suppose, be the residue of traumatic memories -- a kind of Freudian imposition of unspoken boundaries.  But I don't think so.  By all appearances they are content in each other's company.  And then there are those who locate responsibility squarely at my feet.  I have been complicit, they argue, in patterning a habit the hens are now unwilling to break.  To some extent, I'll concede their point.  I am an indulgent flockster.  Those who have observed this have noted that in their second life they would like to come back as one of our chickens.  Fair enough.  I'm an enabler.

But I am convinced there is more to it than mere routine.  More than memory; more than habit, I rather believe, as Pliny surmised, it has something to do with the location of their heart.  It's as though they are saying, "we'll spend our days in whatever way makes sense -- in wild adventure or pursuit of basic sustenance, in deep contemplation or lively social engagement -- but at the end of the day we'd prefer to simply go home.  Where our comb-headed, feathery little heart is."

Which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like me.

So, I suppose I am good with it.  But it sure would be nice if I could teach them to close their eyes, click their heels together and cluck something like, "There's no place like the annex..." and miraculously be there without my assistance.

But I doubt the ruby slippers would fit their little claws.