When the Israelites were in captivity under Pharoah in Egypt, it impacted a number of things concerning control and freedom in their reproductive behavior and rightful parental ownership (in the sense of normal, healthy parental rights) regarding their children and grand-children. At least early on, perhaps this people group was not constrained in freely populating in the times when Joseph’s family came to Egypt seeking refuge and garnered, perhaps, an amount of favor.
Eventually, a new Pharoah came into power and was concerned at the immense number of Hebrew slaves in their midst. He also had received wind of a prophetic word that their “foreign god” (was was actually the One True God) was to raise up a deliverer among this people. He ordered that all first born males be killed upon birth and conscripted the Hebrew midwives to carry out this decree.
I quite like the response of the midwives to Pharoah and the description of the situation.
Exodus 1:6-22 (NIV)
Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them.
Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.
The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”
The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”
So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”
And many of us know the rest of the story of Moses being hidden in a basket on the Nile where Pharoah’s daughter and her women friends found the baby, taking him to Egypt’s palace and caring for him. But, not without conscripting a wet nurse from among the Egyptians, which turned out to secretly be Moses’ own, natural mother.
It is an amazing story, in-and-of-itself, without any further considerations.
I think also of how the captivity of African slaves during the United States’ dark practice and that history impacted child bearing, child raising and enacted a number of other cruel, damaging and heart-breaking things upon mothers and families, having far-reaching implications into the future.
But the main object lessen here today from my own personal world involves not humans, per se, but chickens.
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Yesterday I went out to check on the separated broody hen whom I had given ten eggs to sit on about three weeks ago (three weeks is incubation time for little peeps). I had built a separate maternity enclosure outside of the main coop in early spring, hoping that some hens I thought might be broody would hatch some newlings into the flock, to keep egg production steady and let go of some older birds, perhaps. (For all the effort I could have bought seven little chicks for not too much, but I felt inclined to be more involved in the process, for personal reasons including continued spiritual learning from nature.)
I quickly learned with loud protests and several attempts that each hen I selected and confined refused the task. This was months ago, and I had given up (after also a failed attempt to hatch eggs in a borrowed incubator). And then, three weeks ago, when least looking for it, I noticed one of my red hens sitting quite still mid-day on a bunch of eggs when I went out to collect. I decided to not disturb her and see where she was around dusk. I had read that some hens are just lazy when they stay in the box mid-day, rather than broody. And also, some folks told me that the chicks one gets and raises to henhood from large chain stores have had the “broodiness” bred out of them some how.
While it would make sense that profiting chick breeders might attempt that, I wasn’t quite believing that because I successfully had a hen hatch seven eggs in Alabama in 2019. Even if an amount of the brooding instinct is bred out, I don’t think you can totally change Mother Nature’s instincts..
So I took that red hen at dusk and put her in the separate enclosure, and I gave her the seven warm eggs that had been under her and also added three more from an adjoining box. I had read they can hatch up to twelve eggs under their bosom and wings. (I also read that a Mother Hen will turn and rotate each egg under her 3-4 times per day.)
She was initially also distressed and protesting, but the next day I saw that she had resumed her broody posture which was to sit in the box on the eggs, barely moving, barely blinking.
During the next weeks I made sure there was water and some food for her, and there were evidences that she had left her nest-eggs box and taken a nibble or two (the container was spilled on its side) of food, but I never saw her do that. It is such odd and interesting behavior, and when I checked on her daily I found myself staring, making sure she wasn’t dead and dehydrated, watching her through the little window in the enclosure. She would sit motionless, staring, without any noticeable blinks or movements.
Then yesterday I went to check on her, about 3 days before I marked my calendar with the due date, surprised to see seven little peeps! They had all hatched within the preceding 24 hours. I’ve not yet been out to see if the other three have hatched today. If they don’t, it might be because those eggs were the additional I tried to give her and had become cold for too long, prior to her removal at dusk. (I read that fertilized eggs can go up to 24 hours sometimes without being actively incubated and still develop later.)
When I went inside the enclosure yesterday to get a closer look, the Mother Hen was suddenly very alert, and as I leaned close to look, she growled at me.
Yes, a chicken can make a growling noise.
Even though I feed her and the others in their captivity, I am not one of them. I am a different creature, and quite larger. Instinctively, all mothers want to protect their young. From the mama bear to the Mother Hen to the human mother, unless the instinct is somehow altered or thwarted, the mother is interested in the survival and thriving of her offspring.
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This morning, I was curious whether chickens were the only birds to collectively allow a representative (broody) hen to do the work needed on their behalf. I learned a few more tidbits such as why a flock of hens tend to lay all their eggs in one (or two) baskets. This is called a clutch of eggs. I read that the flock trusts the judgement of the first and earliest one to lay an egg that day in a certain place, and they follow suit. I wonder if the hen with broody instinct, feeling up to the task of sitting on them, may be the first to lay an egg. Who knows.
I read the first egg layer of the day chooses the particular location for its safety. And these eggs were in the center of my nesting boxes, perhaps in the chicken’s brain, the safest place.
I also wondered if chickens in the wild engage in this collective behavior, or if each hen tends to only sit on her own egg. Actually, I learned that wild chickens only lay 10-15 eggs per year during breeding season, whereas domesticated chickens lay 250-350 a year. (This website was some type of animal rights site, and stated how hard this was on the chickens’ bodies and how eggs had no nutritional value for humans…I suppose this shows that any agenda produces their “expert” opinions and “facts.”)
In the course of my reading I also wondered what other birds lay and incubate eggs collectively and came up with an article of five other species. Apparently, the common cuckoo bird bullies other birds out of their nests so she can lay her eggs and force the other birds to hatch and raise them. That’s a bit fascinating!
“The common cuckoo is easily one of the most well-known and studied brood parasitic bird species. It poses as a sparrowhawk and bullies a bird out of its nest so it can lay its eggs.”
–5 Birds That Lay Eggs in Other Birds’ Nests
In conclusion, I was also thinking of the wisdom of Solomon when two mothers came before him arguing over a baby–each stating that the baby belonged to them after another baby died during the night, the one accusing the other of switching the infants. King Solomon wanted to execute some form of justice and equality in the scenario and asked that a sword be brought out and the infant divided between the two women.
The one woman was happy with the decree, feeling that justice would be served. The other woman begged that not happen, even saying the child could be given away from her to the demanding party. In this, King Solomon knew who the true mother was. (I Kings 3:16-28)
There is a lot to think about here and in the United States today as mothers witness their children being taken into captivity by the State in a number of ways. Vocal activists—many of which are men or who are women that have never given birth or women whose protective, motherly instincts are apparently bred out of them and polluted–are using many forms of outright manipulation and coercion toward mothers and parents in order to steal our little peeps.
They loudly shout and threaten mothers that if they don’t comply with the requirements and demands of this huge entity of a movement, and its powerful, dark, enslaving, population-controlling forces, ideologic indoctrinations and agenda, that they will have a dead child. They utilize and weaponize every cultural and State force mechanism in order to impose their will.
And so I ask, when they come for your peeps and your grand-peeps, Mama Hen…are you going to growl?
Thank You For Reading
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