HERE CHOOKY CHOOKY

Dangle a Shmacko in front of a dog and you’ll have a friend for life. Try to take it away it away from him and you’ll make an arch enemy. Finding out what goes on inside the heads of our furry and feathered friends with regards to their eating habits is not always straightforward. Take the humble chook for instance.

Never having had chooks of my own, I find it valuable to have friends nearby with chooks who can benefit from my food scraps. I haven’t exactly always been particularly partial to these clucking, pecking egg producers, having had a couple of run ins with rampaging roosters over the years determined to display their dominant macho psyches while keeping me away from their private harem.

What I have noticed though, and it reminded me of my observations of the eating habits of sparrows in the back yard (March 5^th), is that like various species in the animal kingdom, chooks will eat anything put in front of them, but there is some sort of system and an obvious preference about how they go about it. Usually all they get from me are vegetable peelings, bit of leftover rice or pasta, furry things from the bottom of the fridge, a bread crust or two, but I had a bit more than usual the other day after having visitors the night before.

Into their pen went the bag full of scraps, and along with it what they obviously considered a real delicacy…..pizza. Everything else was ignored while each chook descended on the pizza scraps, retreating to a space within the enclosure to devour their find ready to fend off in no uncertain terms any poacher encroaching on his or her ground. Only after each morsel was successfully defended and consumed did anything else get a look in.

Besides wondering about the junk food cravings of chooks, made me think about our own tactics when we’re presented with something irresistible, whether we can see beyond the initial urge to have something all to ourselves, whether the primal urges can give way to awareness of the needs of others. It may be easy to defend and justify our position, but the easy way might not always be the most helpful.