DEI Chicken Flock

We have a DEI Chicken Flock. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in chickens??? Yes! A smart way to husband animals. And honor people, too.

DEI Variety

Within our small flock are chicken breeds with various body types, feather colors, origins, and dispositions. Here’s what we have:

• Light Brahmas are huge with a quiet personality and mostly white feathers. Their distant ancestry may be traced back to Asia, so they’re named after the Brahmaputra River.
• New Hampshire Reds are medium-sized hard-working brown egg layers with light reddish feathers. They’re Yankees to the core. Industrious. Taciturn. Weather tough.
• Delawares are another medium-sized brown-egg layer with mostly white feathers and a name honoring our second smallest state.
• Mystic Onyxes, bred by Hoover’s Hatchery, are jet black and socially reserved.
• Buff Cochins are huge birds with fluffy-buffy feathers. Only modest brown egg layers but friendly. Cochin is a region in Southern Vietnam.
• California Whites are nervous fast-moving white-egg layers always on the lookout for predators…..and they’ll let the flock know when they see one. It’s named for our most populous state.

Blending Characteristics

Our DEI chicken flock of mixed breeds includes a blend of good characteristics. Together they create a community of diversity and strength. Occasionally they have a kerfuffle. Don’t we all? Mostly they get along with each other and help each other out. Partly because we give them space and good living quarters, and treat them kindly. It’s a resilient, mutually supportive, and productive flock.  We treat them all equally and humanely. In return they eat food scraps (no waste into the sewer system or landfill), give us their jewel eggs, and entertainment as we chuckle at their antics.

Lessons

We have had chickens for decades. Even as young kids. Our chickens always teach us about personality diversity. Each chicken breed has likely common characteristics. Then, there’s personality variation within a breed. For example, we collect eggs by lifting the lid of each nest. Sometimes there’s a hen occupying it. If it’s a Black Onyx we get thoroughly scolded by her for disturbing her privacy. However, if a Light Brahma is in the nest she doesn’t seem to mind at all being spied on.

Our flock is also healthier because we DO provide space and superior nutrition, keep the coop and run clean, and remove opportunities for pests like mice and House (English) Sparrows to bring in diseases or eat valuable feed.

The same holds true for people. When we treat each other well, build on our strengths, and have open minds, everyone is better off.
As a nation, like in DEI chicken flocks, we are stronger, wiser, and healthier in diversity, equity, and inclusion.