Is it possible that, after all these years of carefully avoiding feather-contact situations, I might be able to overcome my phobia?
As a psychologist, I would of course have to say yes. Desensitization; Flooding. Different approaches to the same goal, proffered as obvious solutions by well-meaning psych-professionals, and cashed in on as entertaining TV by programme-makers, none of whom have the faintest inkling of what it actually feels like to be disablingly in the grip of a completely irrational feeling which surpasses common fear.
I am (was) a psychologist. I am also a phobic. Many’s the time I have wished that I could swap my phobia for a more commonly acceptable one, like spiders, snakes or rats (none of which bother me in the least). Being ‘scared of feathers’ seems just plain ridiculous. Of course I know they ‘won’t hurt me’. Of course I understand my response to the sight, nay, even the thought of the sight of one is utterly unreasonable. But I CAN’T HELP IT.
Since it has been a long-held part of Simon’s dream that we should have chickens, I began my preparation for this moment way before we moved to France. Those much-missed visits to the lake at Markeaton Park to watch the ducklings required daily walks across expanses of feather-strewn grass, where the feather-covered geese hung out in huge, threatening gangs. I gradually became accustomed to accomplishing this monstrous feat, motivated by my interest in bird-watching (a strange hobby for a feather phobic perhaps, but I really do like birds), and achieved by not looking down, and focussing my attention on the faces and behaviour of the geese, rather than their attire. But still, one flap from a shore-side swan, or friendly approach from a bread-seeking duck, would have me shuddering and moving hastily away from the scene of the horror.
So how is it that after only a few days of back-yard chicken ownership, I find myself able to sit calmly next to the chickens scratching for seeds a few feet away, able to look (hopefully) in the nesting box for eggs, and able to put my hand inside the chicken house to remove the water-bottle for refilling?
It seems to me that something all those psycho-pros may have missed is the powerful effect of the nurturing instinct. Whilst I am not yet at the stage where I can even contemplate the thought of picking up a chicken, or even touching one with bare hands (well, I can contemplate it but only with a sense of utter revulsion), my interest in them as individual living creatures, and my desire to make sure that they are safe and happy, is enabling me to suppress my aversive reaction to their feathers to a bigger extent than I might have imagined. So long as they don’t surprise me, that is.
And they are indeed individuals. Luckily their plumage patterns (a nice name for the indescribable) are just about distinctive enough for us to be able to tell them apart. But as is the case with all living creatures that so often appear to look identical at first glance, it is the differences in behaviour -both the obvious things like actions, habits and movements, and the subtler behaviours amounting to manner and attitude, that really makes them distinguishable. It’s those things that make it possible for me to identify whether that white llama on the hill 300 metres away is Duc or Valentine.
As individuals, the chickens have already attracted names. (Good job we’re not planning to eat them).
After Naughty Chicken, there is Big Chicken, Pretty Chicken and Other Chicken. (Other Chicken has yet to do anything notable to identify herself in a positive way). Big Chicken is…well…big, and has certainly laid us one egg, if not two (I actually caught her in the act on one occasion). She is nearly always next in line to follow wherever Naughty Chicken goes. Pretty Chicken has come close to being called Blonde or Essex Chicken, because as well as having lighter colouring than the others, and a more attractive general appearance, she is also the most stupid, and lowest in the pecking order. Naughty Chicken is the smallest of the bunch, and I suspect a Bonaparte complex might be the source of her bravado.
At this moment, three of them are huddled, sheltering under the leylandii trees. Naughty Chicken is on her own, checking out the nearest bit of fencing, and looking wistfully into the distance beyond. Sooner or later, one or more of these ladies will go AWOL. Any bets on who is likely to be the first escapee? (Blog comments gratefully accepted, and betting odds will be published in the near future).
So for the time being, all is lovely in the chicken-garden. And perhaps by the time the moulting season comes around, the sight of tumble-weed balls of scraggy brown feathers rolling erratically around my feet will no longer fill me with the gut-wrenching, cardiac-arrest-inducing anxiety levels of a virtual-reality horror movie.
