picture by Audrey Pavia
My chickens have taught me the truthful meaning behind certain expressions .
The English linguistic communication is full of citation tochickens . I never really ante up much attention to these expressions until I became a chicken owner . My great deal as helped me understand the true signification behind many of these term — on a personal level .
“Don’t be a chicken.”
The lawful substance of this construction did n’t really hit me until the day I walked out of the garage holding a straw broom . In onetime picture , farmers ’ wives use straw broom to chase the chickens off the porch . My stack must have seen all those movies because when they carry a expression at that chaff broom , they creak and ran in a hundred dissimilar directions .
Lesson learned : volaille are n’t the intrepid creatures on the planet .
“Henpecked”
I used to have a Sebright hen make Shiva . I had to re - home her because she was a bully . She was always beat up the other hen . She would get them in a recession of the coop andpeck , peck , peckat them until the poor dupe could n’t take it anymore and would run , only to be cornered again . Shiva would follow her and preserve her rape .
Lesson learned : There ’s nothing unfit than being henpecked .
“When the chickens come home to roost”
Not a night goes by without my peck dutifully place themselves to log Z’s in their coop . As soon as the sun starts to go down , they pilot one by one onto the coop roof and make their way onto their roosting pole .
Lesson memorize : Chickens always hail home to roost .
“Rare as a hen’s teeth”
I ’ve had to give unwritten medicinal drug to all my hen at various points in their young living .
Lesson learned : tooth on a hen are very rare .
“Pecking order”
WhenBaby Jocame into the peck as a diminutive wench , brook to Betty Jo , she was safe while she was under her female parent ’s precaution . But as soon as she became a fryer , she was on her own . The other hens made it unclouded : She waslow biddy on the totem pole . They demonstrated this by pick at her safe and hard if she tried to eat something they reckon was only worthy of a hen of high standing .
Lesson learned : chicken clearly have a hierarchal order , reinforce by beak .
“Mother hen”
No more beautiful example of motherly love can be find anywhere in the barnyard than in the hen . When Betty Jo hatched her one chick , she cared for that baby like nothing I had ever find . She was always at her chick ’s side , showing her where the food for thought was and how to feed it . Betty Jo courageously chased off thebarn catand thepoor dogwhenever they innocently wandered too close-fitting to her wench . Betty Jo ’s entire globe revolved around her tiny formal of fluff . And when Baby Jo arise to be a frier , about the same size as her mother , Betty Jo still rent her sleep under her wing on the roosting public opinion poll .
Lesson learned : There is no female parent like a hen .
