When your flock is new and young, they’re hard to catch. Even friendly hens dart out of the way of hands reaching down to grab them. Then, something changes, and you’ll see this:

The hen lowers herself towards the ground, flattens her back, and tucks in her head. She squats.

You’ll usually first notice this when the days lengthen in the springtime. It coincides with the laying season. Squatting is what a hen does when a rooster approaches her to mate. Does that mean that she thinks you’re going to mate with her? Who knows what goes on inside of a chicken’s head? But I don’t think so. I think that an ovulating hen is hard-wired to flatten herself and be immobile when a bigger being is looming over her.

Many people like to interpret behavior as either dominant or submissive, but I think that view of the world is restrictive and that you miss what’s really going on. Submissive implies that the hen is passive. A hen has a choice. A hen can avoid a rooster (or me) by running off, and some hens have no problem telling a rooster what’s what. Fertile hens are receptive to mating, and squatting is a way to communicate that. She is an active participant in the action, not simply a meek female. (This said, if the enclosure is too small, and there are too few hens per rooster, the dynamic changes to the detriment of the hens. Most backyard set-ups aren’t suitable for healthy behavior between roos and hens.)

As with all behavior, it’s complicated. Mating can be rough on a hen. The rooster can rake her back with his talons and rip feathers off of her neck with his beak, and so the squat is also a protective position – you’ll see it when an aggressive hen attacks another. The weaker hen will turn her back to the bully and squat. This shields her head and belly, and changes her center of gravity so that she stays upright.

Although it’s generally true that hens that squat are the best layers, that’s not always the case. Misty lays daily and yet you won’t catch that lean, fast Andalusian, squatting – if I loom over her, she speeds off.

Beatrix, though, is a mild-mannered Ameracauna. When I need a hen for a school visit, there she is, looking pretty and calm,

and when I reach over, she squats.

This is why Beatrix often gets to meet children, and Misty stays home.

I’m fortunate, this snowy winter, to be boarding at a farm that has an indoor. After riding we take a pitchfork and scoop up any manure that our horses have left. This maintains the good footing in the ring, and is the polite thing to do.

It can be awkward to lead your horse over to the offending piles, use the pitchfork, and then walk it over to the manure bucket. I thought it’d be much easier to teach Tonka to stand while I did the task without the tangle of reins or the worry that he’d jostle me and that I’d drop the manure. So I taught Tonka to stay. Just like a dog. Why not?

As with all training, first I thought through exactly what the end behavior would be. In this case, I wanted my horse to stand calmly while I walked away and walked back. He had to stand while I was as far away as the other end of the ring. I would be walking behind, in front and to his side – and each of these positions would need to be trained – animals don’t generalize – for example, you might think that you trained your dog to “stay” but actually you only trained her to stay while you were five feet away and in front of her, while in your kitchen. Move to the hallway, and she no longer knows what stay means!

I thought through what the cue would be. I wanted to have the option of using either a verbal stay or a tactile signal. That physical cue would be two taps to his forehead – distinct and different than any other touches that I might do. In the future, I’ll extend this training to outside of the ring. How useful it will to be, while on the trail, to be able to get off, say stay, and do something like move a branch off of the path. How useful, somewhere noisy or chaotic, to be able to tap his forehead and have him stand still.

I taught the stay with the clicker and treats (mostly carrot coins and apple slices, but sometimes homemade cookies or peppermints.) At first, I walk one step away, and click and feed before he can move. Two steps. Click and feed. A step to the side. Click and feed. The click tells him exactly what he is doing right – all four feet on the ground, weight square over them. Calm. The treat makes the behavior rewarding and worth doing again. The click ends the behavior. If he moves after it, no problem. He still gets the treat. I build duration. I step away, count to three, he remains standing, I click and treat. If he moves, no matter, there’s no click. We try again. There’s nothing to punish, no reason to scare him back into position with a threatening rope or a harsh word. The training is quiet. The horse is relaxed.

It takes time.

But now when I say stay, or tap Tonka on his forehead, I can walk away.

If a horse is in a stay, then why not teach the come? Once again I had to think through the behavior and the cue. I want Tonka to walk calmly towards me. I want him to start when I say come (I also have a hand signal – I like the option of one or the other.) I started from only a step away. He moves towards me, click and treat. Then two steps, and then more.

Here he is, responding to come.

Good boy, Tonka!

I am now taking clients for training. Email me if interested.

While the rest of us are grousing and hmmmphing and stomping our booted feet, there is one animal here at Little Pond Farm who is embracing this extreme winter. Why, she’s kicking up her heels in glee. Her attitude shows the rest of us how it can be done. For a moment, let’s see the snowy landscape from Phoebe’s perspective.

She is, literally, three feet higher than usual. It’s a new view. New views are good.

The snow is delicious. It’s good to have something novel to taste.

Tunnels are dug. It’s good to be industrious.

It’s especially good to be the Queen of the Mountain.

More snow is predicted for Sunday night. Phoebe can’t wait to see how high she can get.

When you look at a hen’s head, what do you notice? The eyes? The comb? That beak with the permanent downward disapproving  scowl?

What we see impacts how we perceive the lives of our animals. We think that dolphins are happy because they look like they’re smiling – but their mouths are as fixed as hens’ beaks.

How we think that the animal relates to the world is done from our own prism of self-centeredness. A dog’s primary way of knowing what is going on is via smell. Because we don’t have that sense, we often misinterpret our pet’s behavior because we don’t take into account his complex world of odors.

Back to the hen’s face – what we fail to notice are her ears.

That flap of red skin, to the left of the wattle is Veronica’s ear. This is Agatha’s ear.

Chickens have excellent hearing. It’s about in our own range, but they are far speedier in processing the direction that sound comes from.

At twelve days into development, the chick inside of the egg is hearing. Some birds recognize their mother’s vocalizations before they hatch. Chickens recognize individuals, both in the flock, and in other species. I’ve no doubt that my hens know the difference between Lily’s barks and Scooter’s. They know my voice. Sounds matter. Lawn mowers. Hawk screams. The rattle of the grain bin. Think about that as you care for your flock. Yes, they’re confined, but their world extends farther than the fence that surrounds them.

There’s some anecdotal evidence that music makes them more productive. Or at least calmer. I think that it depends on the farmer as to which music they prefer! I don’t play music for my hens, but I am aware of how sounds affect them. I try not to slam doors, or shout. I do talk to the Girls. They hear me, of course. They don’t understand the words, but the tone matters.

This winter, I have much to learn from Scooter.