Backyard Chickens Part I: Babyness

Yes, we're one of the many crazy families who have decided the backyard is the perfect place to raise a small flock of chickens.

It's embarrassing to be part of a trend - at least for me.

I had planned to begin chicken farming last summer to complement the garden, fruit trees, and grape arbor (it's amazing what you can easily raise on a tiny little village lot). But I was doing research down in Chile, the startup costs seemed so high, and further research showed it took six months before I'd see an egg and by then it would be so late in the season . . . So we put it off.

Not this year.

The eight chicks arrived 12 days ago - seven two days old and one barely dried from the shell. They've been a lesson in developmental psychology and social behavior.

Observation 1: Chicks are CUTE!

Okay, this is not profound. But chicks do follow all of Konrad Lorenz's rules of babyness:

• Proportionately larger head than body.
• Forehead that protrudes relative to rest of face.
• Extremities that are short and thick.
• Round body shape.
• Soft elastic body surface.
• Chubby (round) cheeks.

Look at Taffy (the yellow chick at left) at five days old. Don't you feel like snuggling? Animals - especially small ones - who have the qualities Lorenz described as 'babyness' evoke a caregiving response in humans, other mammals, and, in fact, birds. They're irresistible. (In fact, I am now in my second hour trying to convince my 12 year old that he'd get his math homework done faster if he wasn't trying to do it with a chick snuggled in the crook of his elbow).

Below are two more pictures of the same chicken breed - Buff Orpingtons - at one day old and as adults. The one day olds has even more of the babyness qualities than Taffy exhibits at 5 days. They're rounder, have larger heads (and almost no necks), and relatively larger eyes. You can't see their tiny feet (baby bunnies are even cuter, with their thick round limbs). Very downy (no tiny wing feathers). And noticeably cuter even than they will be less than a week later. The adult bird at the right - although rounder and more appealing than some chickens - evokes nothing of the 'awwww . . . ' response that her younger self did. The longer neck, skinny (bald) legs, and longer beak make it clear that this is an adult, despite the round body.

Buff Orpington one day old chicks and adult

Human infants evoke the same responses from the adults, children, and even the domestic animals around them. The baby look and their helpless behavior evokes a caregiving response as well. John Bowlby, in this theory of attachment, describes both the baby's evoking response and the adult caregiving response as part of an in-built attachment system that keeps adults close to their babies and increases the likelihood that babies will grow up to become functional - and more importantly - genetically viable and eventually reproducing - adults. Babies who are born premature or low birthweight for their gestational age typically have fewer of the fat deposits that give healthy babies their round cheeks and chubby limbs, tend to be less attractive. Their relatively lack of the qualities that say 'cute' puts them them at increased risk for abuse and neglect, despite their greater caregiving needs.

Just like our quick-growing chicks, as human babies get older, they lose their instant appeal. Babies are adorable. Toddlers are cute. Children become pretty or handsome, and teenagers are gawky. Even now, at day 10, with sprouting feathers poking through the fluff, budding combs suddenly giving articulation to that formerly smooth skin above the beak, and noticeably longer necks, the now almost fledglings have that quick, awkward look of second graders. And like children of that age, their actions are much more coordinated. Another two weeks, and the girls will start looking like gawky adolescents - their legs, hands, noses, heads, and ears that look much too long for their bodies - which will not yet have filled out to adult proportions.

And then we'll be ready to throw them out of the house.

© 2011 Nancy Darling. All Rights Reserved