On the pecking order.
My downstairs neighbors have a small menagerie in the front yard. Chickens. Ducks. Rabbits. People walking by often stop and marvel. The whole scene is rather exotic for the industrial east side. Edenic almost.
Almost.
I have always had a vague idea in my head of the pecking order. Of social dominance established by the beak. But relentless brutality is the only way I can describe the behavior I have witnessed, without any seeming concern over food or mate.
It is hard not to anthropomorphize here. [Sadisitic.]
Or make the scene representative of some larger world view that it could not possibly sustain. [A world made of stone.]
But looking at a chicken as it is pinned to the ground and pecked, unyielding and without mercy, invoked the image of a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
Almost.
I have always had a vague idea in my head of the pecking order. Of social dominance established by the beak. But relentless brutality is the only way I can describe the behavior I have witnessed, without any seeming concern over food or mate.
It is hard not to anthropomorphize here. [Sadisitic.]
Or make the scene representative of some larger world view that it could not possibly sustain. [A world made of stone.]
But looking at a chicken as it is pinned to the ground and pecked, unyielding and without mercy, invoked the image of a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
posted by d l wright at 2/01/2009 11:11:00 PM
2 Comments:
Same thing happens at the Aviary every March, when the mallard ducks are mating. The male ducks chase the females in what is essentially a gang rape situation.
I heard a Radiolab a few months ago about how female ducks get back at the males by having labyrinthine vaginas. If duckette doesn't like the drake, she'll choose to shunt his sperm to a dead end.
This still doesn't make me feel better about it.
I just subscribed to the Radiolab podcast :)
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