Nudging Up the Ramp

We have only had them one day.  It’s too soon, I know, to worry.

But of course I do.

Yesterday we received from one of our favorite hatcheries 4 new hens.  One of the pairs— the Light Sussex — is a breed new to our flock.  The other pair —the  Ameraucanas — we have, but as these two new ones (a black and a white splash) demonstrate, the breed colorations can be so varied that often the only characteristics they manifest in common are the fluffy, tufted faces and their blue eggs.  Twelve weeks old, they arrived two to a box at the local Post Office.  Understandably they are a little anxious and unsettled.  

Once home I lifted each from her cardboard conveyance and settled her into coop.  Closing the door I noted that they had no trouble finding the feeder inside and gobbling down a bit of lunch.  Checking on them later in the afternoon I was delighted to see that they had found their way down the ramp to explore the self-contained run below.  There they had located the waterer and yet another feeder, and space enough to move around and flap their wings, but contained enough to protect them and encourage their acclimation.  

Parenthetically I’ll insert that when new girls arrive in our care they stay quarantined for at least a month for health safety reasons, but because of their youth they typically remain in their separate enclosure for a couple of months more beyond that until they grow big enough to hold their own with the older, larger girls.  Eventually, when the time seems right, they are moved over into the large chicken yard with the main flock.  These newest additions being older than some, their segregation will likely be shorter rather than longer.

All was well until bedtime.  Our nightly routine is that when dusk descends the hens make their way inside the run and up the ramp into the enclosed coop for the night.  Either Lori or I goes out soon after and closes up the hatches and latches.  That’s when I noticed that these four new arrivals had not gone up inside the coop but were still stirring nervously down below.  In fact, they seemed allergic to the ramp, doing almost anything to avoid stepping up onto it.  I let them be — for a time — but at two later intervals returned to check their progress.  It had only gotten worse.  By now the four had nestled in the crawl space underneath.  

It isn’t the end of the world I reminded myself.  The enclosure is sturdy and locked; they should be safe there, generally speaking.  There are straw bales stacked around the outside keeping most of the wind at bay, plus they have each other to help stay warm.  Ultimately, though, you want them all together inside.  After all, there are all kinds of stories of hungry raccoons reaching through the fencing and…well, I prefer not to think about all that.  But of course I did — all through the sleepless night.    I hustled out to the chicken yard at first light, eager to confirm that they had survived the night; dreading the prospect of discovering that they hadn’t.  

I’m happy to report the former.  Hearing my approach they one by one emerged from their makeshift roost in the crawl space underneath the actual one, flapped their wings and took themselves a drink, and went about their morning busyness.  

But already I’m stressing about tonight.  The temperature is dropping — down to just above zero during the night — and they will better serve themselves, and each other, by heading upstairs.  And all in all I, myself, would prefer a more satisfying night’s sleep.   So, I tried to seduce them upward with apple pieces up the ramp and into the coop.  And they enjoyed the pieces they could reach…on the ramp’s lower levels. But they did not take the upward bait.  

Chalk it down as another restless night — for me if not for them.  I still want them to learn this whole business of climbing the ramp, mounting the roosts, and being secured within.  But in the meantime they have each other.

There is something pragmatic about that, I’ll grant you.  Aborigines in the Australian Outback and Eskimos in Siberia have long mitigated the severity of winter’s brutality with “three-dog nights” – nights so cold that you needed the added warmth of three dogs brought into the bed with you to survive.  And these chickens have each other.

Which is to say that up or down, it’s more than pragmatic; there is something holy about it as well, even in the chicken yard.  To put it simply, we were created to need each other.

That resonates with me in these chilly times – with the prospect for colder still; socially, politically, internationally, economically as well as emotionally and psychologically.  There will yet be moments and seasons when I will comfortably return to the silent comfort of my own counsel, but I will do my best to take for myself the wisdom I am encouraging in these new arrivals — to not neglect the warmth of one another.  New friends, as well as old ones.  New associations alongside the more familiar.  The embrace of family yet surrounding.  

It’s tempting to simply find my way down below, but in these chilly times it is also good and right and holy to risk moving up the ramp into the keeping of each other – to offer whatever warmth we have to share, but moreso to receive the blanketing support we need though sometimes deny.  

In the meantime, in the chicken yard, there is always tomorrow.