The Feral Flock

By James Martin

Rufine tells her story. A tale of chickens who develop a new way of being together whilst learning about a changing world full of challenges and discoveries. In doing so they alter how they think, feel and society itself.

Not suitable for children

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781471642425

James Martin

Rev. James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large of America magazine, consultor to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication, and author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything and My Life with the Saints, which Publishers Weekly named one of the best books of 2006. Father Martin is a frequent commentator in the national and international media, having appeared on all the major networks, and in such diverse outlets as The Colbert Report, NPR's Fresh Air, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.  Before entering the Jesuits in 1988 he graduated from the Wharton School of Business.

Book preview

Dedication

To my wife, my flock and to all those who aim to be more.

A start in dark times

There is a reason for me telling you this.  It is because it is important to know where we come from, it is part of who we are.  There is another reason as well, we should remember those who came before us.  We should respect them and wonder in the colour and life they have given us, without them we would not be here and if we were, we would be much less than we are. So, I need to tell you about the past.  I shall start at the very beginning and you will see how things were very different.  I hope you wont find it boring and that you will try and imagine living it with me. I understand that this will be difficult for you but please try, even if it is just to humour and old hen like me.

It all starts in the egg.  If I asked you if you can remember your time in the egg you would have to say 'no’, for you that would be impossible.  But we can remember it, maybe not every detail but we can remember as much as feelings.  We can remember that feeling of being snug and warm and just knowing that someone who loved us was there waiting for our big day.  It was not that way for Blanche or the others, I know that because I was there with them.  Not in the same egg but nearby.  Blanche and I started together and shared those early days, even though I didn’t actually meet her until some time later.  For us the time in the egg was very different.  I felt snug and warm, maybe too warm, but there was never any sense of being loved.  In fact, what I felt was a sense of being lost in the crowd.  I never had the sense of peace you may have had when your life began.  The time in the egg was lonely and noisy.

I can remember, although it is blurry, the day I hatched.  I remember feeling that I could not cope with it anymore.  The snug feeling went away and instead I felt cramped. I have some memory of a sharp pain earlier but cannot understand what would cause such a thing when in the egg. I could hardly move anymore and I was hungry, oh my I was so hungry.  You will not know how it is when you break out.  So much effort.  When I was out I was alone, my fears were real.  There was no mother hen to help me, I managed to break out by myself and then nothing.  You might think that you can’t miss what you never had but it would be wrong.  There are some things that you miss even if you don’t know they are, things that are natural. I lay there for a short while trying to stand on top of the shell.  As my eyes began to clear I could see shapes – lots of round shapes stretching out around me. I soon raised my head and stood and I began to realise that these were other eggs and among them were other chicks – all alone.  I can remember searching desperately for someone, something, to latch on to, some sense of something to bond with.  But there was nothing.

It was not long before we were gathered up into boxes and some strange things happened.  We were rained on even though we were indoors, and it was a strange rain that tasted odd.  It was a funny experience but it did not hurt.  The thing that hurt was the metal monster that burned away the tip of my beak.  I say ‘my beak’ but it happened to us all.

The next few days, I don’t know how many, are blurry.  They all seemed to merge into one and was a time where little happened.  We were gathered together in what we thought was a small area, not as snug as the egg but crowded all the same.  We began to eye each other up.  Questions began to go round about who were the ones in charge.  We were young birds and there were no older hens to show us what to do or keep us in line.  I think if we had older hens with us then we would have had some order in our lives, we would have known who was in charge.  An older hen would have had life experience and would have looked out for us and taught us how we should all fit in with each other.  Instead we were a group of young birds all trying to be boss. It was a troublesome time but one that I would soon be wanting to return to.  When we were there, we had fights with each other but we also had some space to get away.  When a bird challenged another then there was a moment of trouble but one of them would back down and move away.  Over a short time we had started to get a sense of order.  We were getting to know who the top birds were and to give them space.  Once we started to feel egg ready this all changed.

We were split up into small groups that made no sense to our order.  Human hands would grab and gather us then throw us together.  It happened so quickly that, for me, it was just a panic filled blur.  I was to find out much later that for Blanche it was an experience that was a life defining event. The place we ended up in was like hell.  It was dark and everything was coloured by the red lights that tried to shine on us.  I am not telling you this to scare you or to try and impress you with horror stories.  I am telling you because it is important that you know.  It is a dark part of our past and is a time that changed us all.  I remember those moments like stabs in my sleep.  I have tried to forget but that is not possible.  After the time together where we were just starting to get some sense of order, we were completely disrupted.  Without any care or consideration, we were put into our small cages in small groups.  Make no mistake that the groups were small but the cages were smaller.  We were pressed in against each other so tightly that we could never stretch out our wings or even lift our heads up high.  Standing was so hard.  The floor was made from wire and was sloped like a hillside.  This meant that we had to grip the wires to keep balance and it was not long before the pain started to push, then cut, into our feet.  Then there was the smell.  The acrid stench that took a little time to understand.

The smell was complex.  I could make out the smell of food, if you could call it food.  There was the scent of musty mould that mixed with the un-groomed smell of chicken skin.  An unhealthy smell that hit ones senses and would never leave.  Even now, on a fresh morning, I can breath in the promise of a brand new day but deep inside I can still smell that place.  Food, mould, skin and, well, you know… mess, all mixed together.  There were times, frequent times, when there were other smells mixed with it.  Sometimes there was a mist that would come.  That had a strange smell, almost a salty smell.  Sometimes there was a scent that cannot be described, one that ‘they'most likely didn’t know we could smell, but we could.  That was the smell of death.  None of us ever saw it but stories got back, we all knew about the grinding teeth and the bath.  We didn’t know where it happened but we had an idea about  what happened when hens would disappear, never to return. What exactly happened to them was something we could nor be sure about.  Was it just guess work or imagination, or had the stories  we heard come from reality? It is possible that there was a time when a hen was saved or survived. Maybe another animal bore witness.  I do not know where the information came from but it must have started from somewhere.  I don’t think we learned about it from the humans. Over time we get to understand other animals, some more than others.  Those like us are easy but I can never see the fascination with water that the ducks have.  Fish I can not understand at all. When it comes to people I can get an idea of what they talk about but a lot of it is strange. What I can understand is a sense of what they feel but little more than that.  It is best to try and understand them from their actions and, in the dark place, those actions were never kind. It wasn’t hard to understand what their actions were aimed at.  Their purpose was getting what they could from us.  We were kept close together and fed cheap food so there could be more of us.  This meant more eggs, and all our eggs were taken.  We all knew where we fitted into their world.  The only escape was when we were taken from there and we knew that, even if the rumours weren’t true, there was nothing to suggest that we would be taken somewhere nice.

The people inside the dark place were not the only ones. We began to hear human sounds coming from outside.  It was a rhythmic noise and although I couldn’t work out what the words meant, I could hear the anger and the protest, and the fact that there were lots of them.  The sounds were different because, for the first time, it gave us the impression that humans could be angry with other humans - that they could be different from each other. As time went on the noise from outside became louder and more intense. There was a similar anger from those in charge when humans in white coats came round.  There was pointing and shouting and shaking of heads.  I do not know what it was about but I knew something wasn’t right.

Meanwhile, the crush within the cage, the red light and the painful floor all closed in on us.  We were so cramped yet so alone.  The order had gone and, in its place, came madness.  Hen would turn on hen but without room to surrender or retreat.  Some, in fact many, would turn on themselves.  Hens would peck at themselves, either distract from the hell around them or to try and escape it in some other way…That is the state I got to.

We were trapped in our cages with nothing to do but try and survive.  I was lucky to share a cage with Bianca, a white hen with a natural tendency to care.  The other hen was called Gray, she was not so nice.  When things got agitated, which was all the time, Gray would often start just lashing out with claw and beak.  During these times my instinct was to try and crouch down and hide, Bianca’s was to spread her wings out and shield me whilst calling out to me and Gray with words to calm things down.  I have little doubt that she saved me on more than one occasion.  Gray was, however, on a steady slope to madness and it was clear that neither I nor Bianca would survive long in this cage.  We were not alone.  From the cage I could look across and see others looking back.  This was when I first saw Ginger and Amber, and another hen whose name I never found out.  It was what happened in the cages, one hen would become freaked out and could not cope, they would then take it out on the weaker hen.  This didn’t mean that the ‘weaker’ hen was actually weaker, it was more that they were seen that way.  The thing is that once a hen was seen as weaker, and treated as such by frequent attacks, they became weaker due to the physical and mental injury.  I was very lucky because I had Bianca with me.  I was the one seen as being weaker but Bianca’s protection reduced the injury and her words lifted my spirits.  This also meant that she then received the force of the attack and was at risk of being the ‘weaker’ one.  When this happened I began to take on her role by doing for her what she did for me.  We became a partnership and were not alone.  This kept us going but also meant that we were both being weakened by the attacks.

Looking across at Ginger and Amber I could see a similar thing happening.  Amber was seen as the weaker hen and the nameless hen attacked her frequently.  Ginger’s reaction was different to Bianca.  When Amber was under attack, calling for help, Ginger did not shield her but, instead, pushed herself into the corner of the cage and watched in fear.  This happened again and again, with Amber becoming weaker and Ginger trembling more each time.  It was a sad thing to watch, I felt helpless as Amber was taken closer to the edge.  The other hen’s eyes became more and more distant and removed.  Then, without warning, the hen launched herself at Amber again.  This time Amber did not call out for help but instead gave a gentle moan of surrender, as if she knew this was it.  Watching on, the fear inside Ginger seemed to suddenly transform into desperation.  Ginger cried out, summoning all the courage she had.  She leapt forward, taking the other hen by surprise and from the side.  The hen was caught off balance and crumpled onto her side.  Without a thought Ginger mounted the hen and dug her claws in as hard as she could.  With the hen pinned to the floor of the cage Ginger began a series of increasingly well aimed pecks to the hen’s neck and head.  The frenzied movements of the hen subsided as blood streamed from her throat until there were no movements left in her body.  Ginger looked across at Amber who looked back in both shock and gratitude.  Ginger’s eyes then looked back, first at the hen and then straight across at me.  Our gaze locked on together but as I looked at Ginger it was clear that, whilst her eyes looked back, her mind was somewhere else.  I was a young hen at the time and had not gathered much experience of life.  I could not know for sure what the changing looks on Ginger’s face meant but I felt that I could understand some of them, in fact I was having some of them myself.  The first was that of shock, a sense of disbelief in what had happened.  Then came a look of guilt, this was also disbelief but not about what had happened as much as an internalised sense of beginning to realise what Ginger had just done.  From here it moved to a state of confused reasoning.  We had never had older chickens around us, we had no elders to teach us the ways, or the rules, of the world.  The big question rose up - was what had happened ok?  Was it alright to kill another hen? No-one had said it was bad but if it wasn’t bad then why did it feel so wrong?  Then came the realisation that the killing of the hen was bad, very bad, but maybe, just maybe, it was allowable under these circumstances?  Was Ginger a murderer for killing the hen or a hero for saving Amber?  As Ginger was going through this I had suddenly started to question myself.  A coldness ran over me as I wondered if I might have to do the same to protect Bianca and myself.  If I was going to do this it would need to be soon or I would be too weak.  Maybe Bianca and I could do it together? I looked across at Bianca sleeping (we always took it turn to sleep so the other could keep watch on Gray).  I looked at Gray but luckily she had not been watching Ginger.  Gray’s attention was somewhere else.  She looked out, through the side of the cage as if it wasn’t there.  She was semi-distracted by events in other places.  She often did this and was calm doing so, as long as things didn’t get dramatic in the other cages, that was often when she would turn.  I looked at her carefully in case she sensed being watched.  I was unsure if I had what it took to do what Ginger had done.  I looked back at Ginger and saw that her mind had moved on.  Ginger was beginning to stand more upright.  It was as if she had made a choice that she was not going to let guilt, or anything, hold her down.  In her mind she had a friend that was being attacked and she had defended her.  This is what Ginger had decided to be - a hen that took control and dealt with things.  She turned to check on Amber.  Amber had been saved but was not safe.  She was weak, hurt and suffering.  Amber was not going to get better in this place and when the humans saw what had happened there was an almost certain chance that all three of them would be sent to the grinder.

  My feathers had gone, I had no joy or hope, life was nothing but noise, smell, hatred and pain.  I owe my survival of that time to just one thing.  When things were at their worst I would hear a short song from a few cages away.  I didn’t know who was singing it, not then, but when I needed it, it came.  The words were always the same and so was the tune.  It seemed to have the same beat as the human song that had come from outside. Sometimes it would be determined and happy, other times it would sound like the only thing desperately holding things together.  Loud or quiet, soft or strong the song came over to save me.

"This is not me.

This is not me.

My body is caged

But my mind is free."

Repeated again and again, it would dance through my head.  I would hear that song and think about those words.  My body was caged but could my mind be free? Where could my mind go?  Sometimes I would imagine places and sometimes I would just think about it.  Sometimes I could join in with it and sometimes I would get angry at it.  BUT – whatever, however, I reacted to it I had a few moments where my thoughts were not in the cage.  That is what saved me.

There is nothing much else to say about those times.  There was no variation or events to mark.  Everyday was the same and every night seemed to be the same as the days.  The light would change but even then we knew it wasn’t natural.  We all knew that we would be there until the day we would be taken and that for Amber and Ginger that day would be in the morning.

That night, when things were quiet, the doors opened and a group of people came in quietly.  There was a lot of whispering and a mix of bags and boxes were opened up.  Our cages were opened and panic broke out.  Hens were calling out as loud as they could, many trying their best to escape.  We tried to run around as much as we could, but our weak legs and long claws made that painful and difficult and we mainly just bashed against the cage walls.  We were grabbed in desperate, rushed and hurtful ways and put into  the boxes or bags.  I was pushed into a box and it was closed shut, leaving me in darkness.  From that point I could see nothing but I could still hear and what I heard was chaos.  The noise carried on about me, suddenly getting louder.  It was obvious that more people had arrived and that there was a fight going on.  Then came a smell and sound that brings fear to a much different level - DOGS. I thought I could NEVER trust a dog.  I had no direct experience of them at that point but every instinct in me knew that this was a bad thing.  The box, with me inside, was raised up and a series of sudden, sharp movements began.  My guess is that someone had picked me up and ran with me.  At first the sounds got louder but then began to fade quickly as we moved away from the others.  Whoever was carrying me was clearly running.  There was another jolt and bang as, I think, I was thrown into a van or car of some sort.  The engine started shortly afterwards and it sped off.  I managed to make out that I was not alone, in fact there seemed to be a lot of us.  I tried to understand what was happening and why?  I had decided I knew what was happening because hens leaving the dark place did so for only one reason.

The journey to the grinder took much longer than I had thought. I kept thinking that we would soon be there, the fear growing inside me but knowing that the longer the journey was meant that I had a few more seconds alive.  The point came when I began to think that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t going there at all.  Maybe we were being taken somewhere else, to another cage?  Then the movement stopped. We were taken from the van, there was some talking and then the sound of the van driving off

The saving space

When you look back at the past, things can seem different.  You know what has happened but at the time you have no idea.  My life up to that point had been simple.  I hatched, was hurt, felt frightened and waited for death.  I knew death was out there but that was all I knew.  So when we got to where we were being taken we all thought that death was going to be there waiting for us.

We were put into a bigger cage.  This cage was so big that I began to think that it wasn’t a cage at all.  The floor was flat and soft.  I could feel straw and wood chips under my feet for the first time.  The smell was sweet and different.  The air was cleaner and the light was brighter, maybe too bright at first.  There were still fights among us, there always is with chickens, but we had space to run away and back down, and there were perches for other to get onto.  Oh the pure joy in perching for the first time.

It was a different place in every way, but we could not enjoy it at first.  For one thing, standing was still painful.  The wire floor of the dark place gave us nowhere to wear our claws down.  Instead they were left to grow but, with so much else to fear, they never bothered us too much.  In the dark place the pressure wasn’t on the claws but on the tender, soft parts of our feet.  Now we were in the big cage our overgrown claws got in the way and were more painful.  Another reason was that we felt weak.  We had strained to just stand and now we could actually move the strength just was not there.  The other reason was simple fear.  Here the darkness was lifting.  Every day the cage became a little brighter and our eyes got used to it.  There was, however, a door.  This door opened every morning and closed every night.  When it opened, the light that shone through it was so intense that we all had to turn away from it. The light was not the only reason to be wary of the door.  Imagine for a second if all your life the only thing you knew was outside was ‘death’ – would you go outside?

There were hens that I knew.  It was such a comfort to see Bianca was with me.  Ginger had also come with us.  With little delay she had begun trying to order other hens about, some fell in with her commands, others stood up to her.  Amber was there as well, weak and without energy.  Amber was still suffering but she was healing.  The better environment,