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On most days, Lucy and the Hen House gang cut loose whenever I appear outside. I am greeted with a cacophony of loud honks and squawks. Their message is quite clear, “Let us out of here.” And I do.

But then, when the wind starts blowing the Ponderosas into a wavering dance, usually after noon, they retreat to the safety of the pen.

If the day is not bright and sunny—or if I need to open the Hen House doors a little too early—they do not holler at me with such insistence.

If it is raining, the chicken and turkey stay indoors. They have many choices of shelter—dog crates and a dog igloo, an apple tree, an old dog house, a roof constructed of landscape panels from the set of “Petra and the Jay,” and the Hen House itself. At least, turkey sticks her naked head in the door. The rest of her is dressed in a thick layer of feathers.

The geese and ducks—whose feathers don’t get pitifully soggy when wet—ignore rain. They go about their business as if nothing is happening, until they slip in the mud. To avoid disaster, I keep all muddy slopes in the Hen House pen laced with straw. In winter, when mud freezes, I stomp the straw into the ice to secure it. That works almost as well as kitty litter on ice.

However, if it starts to hail, the geese and ducks take notice. Lucy takes great offense at being bopped on the head for no apparent reason. She looks around to see who did it, and only if it continues with undeserved violence does she retreat to the Hen House.

I’m wondering what the moral of this story is. Are we humans any smarter than the geese? Or do we stand in the air, bopped on our heads during each proverbial storm, wondering where they're coming from, again and again?

It’s been almost four years now, since Gwendolyn hen was a chick, raised in our human house during a nasty cold spring, thus imprinted with me as her mother hen.

She still climbs onto my lap whenever I perch on the bench beside the stock tank. She’ll accept a snuggle under my jacket, holds still for several minutes—a rare event in the life of most chickens—then she gets bored and hops off to peck around in the yard for the rest of the morning.

Such imprinting is not unique to birds. When First Turkey was a chick, hunting grasshoppers with us convinced her to eat and live, and she, too, became imprinted on humans. Every time we went into the back yard, she would run to us with a happy bark.

I didn’t realize the power of imprinting on humans until Husband Don and I experienced something like this when we moved to a large apartment in Madison, Wisconsin. The apartment had a large kitchen—too large. My being a less than perfect cook, the floor got stickier and stickier. Worse, the garbage seemed to multiply by spontaneous generation.

Tempers flared and accusations flew: “Why aren’t you taking out the garbage?” I asked sternly. “And why aren’t you mopping the floor?” Don retorted. We answered in unison: “Because that’s man’s/woman’s work.”

Oh! The light dawned. We had been imprinted with different childhood experiences. My dad always did both garbage and floors. Don’s mother did those chores.

True—people are not chickens, but I suspect that patterns of behavioral experience in childhood can define what is natural and acceptable to us humans, as it does with birds.
Our kitchen experience makes me wonder what we do to young human minds with a steady diet of media violence.

Psychologists have defined imprinting as “phase-sensitive learning,” which can be “rapid and independent of consequences” according to Wikipedia. Another phrase is “filial imprinting,” in which the young learn behavior from their parents. We now accept that fact for some animals, also.

Results are mixed in recent studies of the effect of media violence on youth. This is not surprising, given that case study results are hard to make from correlative evidence.

The increasing violence—in amount, degree, and unrealistic lack of damage—written for both books and movies could be disastrous in two ways—1) There is some indication that young people can become addicted to the physiological or mental effects generated by watching violence. There is a possibility that media-experienced violence could be translated and acted out in real life, especially in young people who are mentally or socially challenged. 2) It is known that a young child's experiences can be interpreted by them as what is natural in the world, how the world should be, what is okay.

Do we really know how many school shootings are triggered by media violence? Or suggested? Perhaps justified in sick minds?

As described in the previous blog, studies so far have been equivocal. At first, results indicated that media violence resulted in more acting out. Lately, a relationship between media and real violence has not been shown. Direct cause and effect between viewing media and overt action is hard to find.

Even if a relationship were proved, would it make a difference? As long as violence sells, it will be written and sold. Money trumps everything in our current society. Or does it? The responsibility lies with us as writers—to write truth as we see it, but temper it with possible nonviolent solutions, lessons learned, and creative paths that provide hope for the future.

In previous blogs, the Hen House has taken on Mark Twain and decided that humans are no better or worse than other animals, given the complex nature of their brains and a wide variety of societal influences.

However, we humans may not be very different from animals in other ways—like our susceptibility to the phenomenon of imprinting. Some call it “phase-sensitive learning” or “filial imprinting.” I doubt many animal behaviorists would argue with the psychologists who suggest 1) that young humans learn behavior from their parents or 2) that environmental factors and experience can influence brain development.

More ominous is the finding that children abused in childhood develop more methyl groups on their DNA, which can be passed on for two generations, at least. No wonder the consequences of abuse are so hard to overcome.

In earlier Hen House stories, I have described the lasting effects of imprinting on newly hatched birds. We raised the hatchling First Turkey and the chickens Gwendolyn and Americia with constant care, and they remained bonded to us for life. (See earlier blogs under Domestic Bird Care)

Such imprinting was first observed in chickens in the 19th century, and Konrad Lorenz discovered that greylag goose hatchlings bonded to their first movable stimulus at 13-16 hours of life.

That’s why I worry about young children who are introduced to computer games before they have experienced using their hands by building real objects with blocks, legos, Tinker Toys, and cardboard boxes. These may seem like baby toys to a computer savvy four-year-old, but I hope not.

In her book called Your Hands, Connie Leas explores the importance of hands in brain development. She reports that some engineering firms will not hire people who have not grown up with physical hand manipulation play.

I also worry about teens who are addicted to dystopias or outright media violence. The latter has been on the rise since the 1950’s. Results are mixed in studies of how media violence might trigger violent acts. Though early studies indicated such a link, more recent studies show little influence of media violence on social actions. Overall, the effects of subsequent aggression after experiencing media violence seem to be evenly split. The data oscillate, and there is no agreement that media violence leads to desensitization or psychological saturation that diminished anxiety or disgust. No wonder. Such studies are inherently incapable of producing sound results since they are based on correlations.

The effects on individuals, however, cannot be denied. Shaking the camera to dilute the effects of horrific acts of murder and torture does not make it okay. The violence is still obvious, and I believe that young minds can be imprinted with the fact that it’s okay—a normal way of being in this fictional dystopic world, after all. If even one mind is so influenced, it’s not okay. The excuse of a revolutionary theme cannot erase the damage such imprinting may have on a mind too young to get the revolution’s message.