On the farm, we had four hens and two roosters.
From the beginning, the hierarchy was clear.
One rooster ruled. Not loudly, not constantly, but confidently. He stayed close to his hens, kept watch, broke up trouble before it started. He didn’t need to prove anything. His authority simply… existed.
The other rooster watched.
He wanted the role but not the patience. The status but not the steadiness. He hovered at the edges, testing boundaries, waiting for weakness. And when the master rooster fell sick, that weakness appeared.
The challenger seized his moment.
There was no ceremony, no debate. Just a shift. He postured, claimed space, tried to step into a role he had rehearsed in his head for a long time. For a brief window, it worked.
Until the wounded one healed.
When the master returned, it wasn’t with noise or chaos, but with resolve. The fight was quick. Decisive. The balance restored as if it had only been temporarily misplaced.
The loser didn’t just lose power.
He lost belonging.
The hens shunned him. He wandered the edges alone, visible but unacknowledged. Not chased away just ignored. An outcast in plain sight.
It was hard not to see ourselves in it.
Then came the chicks.
Ten of them. Eight hens. Two roosters. They arrived as a unit, small and uncertain, sticking close together. As they grew, something interesting happened: they never fully merged with the older birds. They formed their own society. Their own rhythms. Their own alliances.
Same space. Different group.
Later still, two new roosters arrived.
Again, they kept to themselves.
No drama. No urgency to integrate. Just quiet separation.
Watching them, day after day, I realized how much of this we pretend is uniquely human.
Power struggles. Envy. Opportunity. Exile. Belonging.
Even healing and return.
Not everyone who wants leadership understands it.
Not everyone who loses status loses dignity –but they often lose community.
And not all groups are meant to merge, even when they share the same land.
Some bonds form early and hold.
Some hierarchies correct themselves.
Some exclusions are brutal in their silence.
The chickens didn’t moralize any of it. They just lived it.
And somehow, that made the lessons clearer.