Merriam Webster offers various definitions of instinct. One holds that it is “a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason.” Another describes it as “behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level.”
If instinct needs a poster child, I'll nominate the chicken, thanks, in large part, to its bedtime regimen.
On our first day as chicken owners, back in 2012, Liz and I wondered how we would get the hens into their coop that night. Talk about naiveté! Summer, fall, winter or spring, our “girls” troop from the pen into the coop like little soldiers following unspoken orders whenever the sun begins to set. Whether it’s 4 p.m. on a frigid February afternoon or 8 p.m. on a sultry July evening, this ritual is as unchanging as the rising and setting of the sun itself.
Sometimes, though, the hens’ insatiable appetites are at odds with their zombie-like quest to roost at dusk. So it was the other evening, when I headed out to the coop to lock the girls in for the night.
I could see from a back window of the house that the pen attached to the coop was empty. That meant the chickens had entered the coop and were, in all probability, already perched on their roost for the night. As I walked toward the coop, though, the girls heard me coming. That’s when they decided to make one last stand.
It may have been dark enough for them to go to bed, but it wasn’t quite dark enough just yet for them to stay there if there was any chance of snagging a bedtime snack.
The telltale sound of chickens hopping down from the roost like tiny paratroopers greeted me as I approached. First, one of the Rhode Island Reds — Hope or Nellie, it’s hard to tell them apart sometimes — poked her head out of the coop door. She tentatively stepped onto the ramp, as if violating some ancient taboo, and finally sauntered down into the pen. The other Rhode Island Red and Snow, our Plymouth Rock, quickly followed suit.
Within seconds, all three hens were strutting around the pen, squawking plaintively, as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. But I wasn’t going to feed them at that late hour, so I told them to go back to bed.
Then I waited them out, because I knew instinct was about to kick in.
Sure enough, as the sky continued to darken by almost imperceptible degrees, the girls surrendered to their programming within a minute or two, this time, for good. They marched back up the ramp and into the coop. Then they jumped/flew up to the roost, where I’m sure they remained until dawn. Dreaming, perhaps, of the treat that got away.
If instinct needs a poster child, I'll nominate the chicken, thanks, in large part, to its bedtime regimen.
On our first day as chicken owners, back in 2012, Liz and I wondered how we would get the hens into their coop that night. Talk about naiveté! Summer, fall, winter or spring, our “girls” troop from the pen into the coop like little soldiers following unspoken orders whenever the sun begins to set. Whether it’s 4 p.m. on a frigid February afternoon or 8 p.m. on a sultry July evening, this ritual is as unchanging as the rising and setting of the sun itself.
Sometimes, though, the hens’ insatiable appetites are at odds with their zombie-like quest to roost at dusk. So it was the other evening, when I headed out to the coop to lock the girls in for the night.
I could see from a back window of the house that the pen attached to the coop was empty. That meant the chickens had entered the coop and were, in all probability, already perched on their roost for the night. As I walked toward the coop, though, the girls heard me coming. That’s when they decided to make one last stand.
It may have been dark enough for them to go to bed, but it wasn’t quite dark enough just yet for them to stay there if there was any chance of snagging a bedtime snack.
The telltale sound of chickens hopping down from the roost like tiny paratroopers greeted me as I approached. First, one of the Rhode Island Reds — Hope or Nellie, it’s hard to tell them apart sometimes — poked her head out of the coop door. She tentatively stepped onto the ramp, as if violating some ancient taboo, and finally sauntered down into the pen. The other Rhode Island Red and Snow, our Plymouth Rock, quickly followed suit.
Within seconds, all three hens were strutting around the pen, squawking plaintively, as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. But I wasn’t going to feed them at that late hour, so I told them to go back to bed.
Then I waited them out, because I knew instinct was about to kick in.
Sure enough, as the sky continued to darken by almost imperceptible degrees, the girls surrendered to their programming within a minute or two, this time, for good. They marched back up the ramp and into the coop. Then they jumped/flew up to the roost, where I’m sure they remained until dawn. Dreaming, perhaps, of the treat that got away.
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