March is “Love Your Chicken Month.”
Well.
Not really.
But if chickens had a month, March would be it. They start giving slightly better eggs in the Spring. And by Summer, their eggs are back to be full-tilt yolky delights.
All that aside, a lot of people really do love their chickens. They cuddle them and treat them like pets. When we first got our chickens several years back, this City Girl made her best attempt at forming a chicken bond with our feathered friends. As it turned out, they were all just a bunch of Mother Cluckers. So, our relationship turned into more of a give-and-take. They gave the eggs, and I took them.
These days, all we have are Bantams. Not my choice for a chicken as their eggs are too small for breakfast fare.
Anyway.
Chickens. They are a huge part of our world. There are more chickens than humans. As of 2023, the world’s domestic chicken population is over 33 billion. I’m not eggs-aggerating.
Perhaps our love for chickens, or the fact that there are so many, has resulted in the following fact: We have a lot of “Chicken Phrases” in our English Language.
Around seven that I can think of right now. But don’t ask me which one came first.
So here they are, in all their feathered glory.
• Fly the coop
When a chicken has flown the coop, it means that the chicken has escaped from that said coop and is now flying or roaming free.
When we humans use the phrase “fly the coop” we mean that someone has left suddenly, or even secretly. It means “to escape or go away” or “to leave home.”
• Pecking order
This refers to the basic pattern of social organization within a flock of chickens. Each bird pecks another lower in the ranks of things. They do this without fear of retaliation. They also will submit to pecking by one of the higher ranks. So. There it is. Chickens thus establish rank within their flock by pecking one another.
When we say “pecking order?” Well, among us humans, it refers to a social hierarchy. We don’t actually, physically, peck one another. We just sort of establish our weightiness in a suggestive sort of way.
• Put all your eggs in one basket
To be clear, chickens do not do this on their own. It is a human thing. To put all of your eggs in one basket is to risk all you have on the success or failure of one thing.
Of course, this idiom comes from the idea that, when collecting eggs from your hens, should you put them all in one basket and then drop that basket, you would lose all your eggs. I’m not sure what they would have us do, though, when collecting eggs. I mean, sure, a safer bet would be to divide them among a few different baskets. But then we’d probably just stack them, one on top of the other, and precariously carry them into the house that way.
• Walk on eggshells
I wonder where this came from, really. To walk on eggshells is to exercise extreme caution. The use of this apparently comes from the fact that eggshells are fragile and would, upon being stepped on, break easily. It would take an impossibly light step not to break them. But in real life, it isn’t like we make a practice of walking around on eggshells, or even eggs, for that matter. One day, I will look up the origin of this.
• Mother hen
When a hen is hatching eggs and raising young chicks, she sits on them, physically protecting them from harm. A hen will continue to keep her chicks close by for several weeks, guiding them, keeping them away from danger. So in our every day goings, a mother hen is a person who assumes an overly protective maternal attitude. I’ve known some of those.
• No spring chicken
Many of us know this phrase all too well. Typically, in the warm weather of the Spring, a hen’s natural instinct to hatch eggs will kick in. And a few weeks later, baby chicks abound. Thus, Spring is when the youngest chickens are upon us. The term spring chicken is used figuratively to mean “a young person.” No spring chicken, you old coot.
• Rule the roost
A roost is where the chickens hang out. And in a flock, you may find that one chicken rules that roost. Figuratively, rule the roost means “to have the most control or authority in a group.” Every roost has one, it seems. Here, there, everywhere.
So there they are. The Chicken Idioms.
Who knew chickens could be so influential?
Or maybe you just don’t give a cluck.
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“The rooster may crow, but it’s the hen who lays the egg.” – Margaret Thatcher,
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“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” – Arnold H. Glasow
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“An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow.” – Benjamin Franklin
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Chicken Vibes. They’re everywhere.
