Rooster Attack

This morning Sword came to the pen to ask for some help with one of the chickens, who had somehow gotten herself entangled in a wire. I left Bow to go help, but because I am always concerned that Bow will get into trouble if left alone, I hurried to the chicken coop to try to get the hen freed and did not take all the precautions I should have. I put on the big wading boots, went into the muddy chicken enclosure, closed the door behind me and then hurried into the hen house and knelt by the hen who had managed to get herself shackled by one leg. I was trying to untwist the wire around her "ankle" when suddenly, without warning, something flew at me and I felt myself attacked, scraped, scratched and pecked. I didn't even see my assailant. But no sooner had the attack started, than it stopped, and I found myself with a chicken hanging from my neck like an albatross.

Confused, I went out of the chicken house, and I loosened the chicken which was hanging by one leg from the keychain around my neck. I set it down, thinking maybe it was the hen who had been trapped earlier, and believing that I had freed it.

It wasn't the hen. It was the rooster, who had attacked me, but as soon as he got himself tangled in the keys hanging from my neck, became completely calm and peaceful. When I set him down safely in the yard, he was satisfied and felt no further need to peck me. I went into the house to tend to my wounds, and it was eventually Sword who freed the trapped hen.

I now have a deep scratch on my face and several bloody wounds on my left arm. After I washed and disinfected the wounds, I went back into the pens with Bow. He had not made a mess, and he waited for me before he eventually used the potty. When I brought out my wad of Kleenex to wipe him, he took a tissue in his hand and gently wiped at the bloody wounds on my arm, instead.

Later he spelled: "That was not Bow." I just hope that nobody who sees me like this will think Bow did this to me. Roosters are a lot more dangerous than chimps!

Self-Reliance and the Pecking Order

Yesterday, while Lawrence was with Bow, Sword and I introduced our new batch of chicks to last year's brood. Rufus, the rooster, exercised a remarkable restraint and showed himself to be a true gentleman. He didn't once peck at the little chicks, and if he did want them to move, he feigned an attack, but never followed through. It was as though he were thinking: "Future wives for me, better be gentle while they're yet too small." The two Long Island Red hens were not as kind, but reserved their pecking mostly for moments when the little ones were in their way at the feeders. But our other hen, a lowly red, who showed some signs of being a victim of pecking herself, was downright vicious. So we had to separate the little chicks and put them back in their own enclosure.

Isn't this often the way it is in life? Those who have success can afford to be generous, but anyone too low on the pecking order jumps at the opportunity to push someone even smaller around. "A servant when he reigneth."

And what about Bow? What role does he play in our attempts at subsistence farming? He watches from the sidelines, because self restraint is not his forte. He could learn a few things from Rufus.

When I first moved here and started Project Bow, one of my dreams was to teach Bow self reliance. I have ten acres. I had visions of teaching Bow how to milk a cow, how to plant a garden, how to pick fruit.

But without self-restraint, the agricultural life style just doesn't work. Bow would rather eat the seeds than plant them. When given access to lots of fruit, he'll eat one bite out of each and move on to the next. He never plans for the future, and what's more, he seems to look down on me for doing so.

I told a fellow primatologist once that I wanted to let Bow have an Easter chick to raise, but he would surely kill it. She said: "If I were you, I would let him. How else can he learn? If he kills one chick, get him another, and another, and another until he stops killing them."

"But that's encouraging him to kill!" I protested.

"Aya, you eat chicken!" she admonished me. (She's a vegetarian. I'm not.)

"Yes, I eat chicken, but I don't kill them for sport."

What do you think? How best to teach self-restraint? Will Bow ever grow to be a gentleman farmer?