When the chickens come home to roost...

Like our selves, chickens are creatures of habit. And the habits are formed early on. We like to settle in at night with whatever our comfortable routine may be. A movie on tv, or a book to cozy up to. Chickens don't watch tv, or read books, but, they like to roost as the sun goes down. Chickens, while they do quarrel about their pecking order, come together when all is said and done. United they stand, divided they fall, when the sun goes down. There are predators who would like to eat them. In this, they are in agreement. So, they look for higher ground. Safer quarters to catch some zzzzs. And so, they roost. A wild feral chicken running about in Key West would find a tree. It is an instinctive and simple thing they do.

So, I built roosts into my chicken project. In my brooder box of little chicks, I stuck a pole. They gravitated to this. No one had to tell them, or show them how to climb, or clumsily fly to it. It seemed a genetic given. I have roosts in my coop. I have roosts in the yard outside the coop. These chickens I am caring for sometimes seem so brainless, and yet, I admire how they seem to have their act together when the day ends. I'm not sure what this says about the rest of us.