Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing: new rules rule the coop!
As often is the case, working with my chickens reminds me of my decades of working in corporate America – although, to be honest, one is much more fun than the other. Mind you, I had a successful career in corporate communications, organization development and change management. I learned a ton, I enjoyed my work and I was good at it. But today, well…I love taking care of my chickens and enjoying the simple, authentic way they live.
A unit of a team development program I trained emerging leaders in included a four-stage process that described how effective teams evolved over time. Having trained, observed and been a part of dozens of teams over my career, I can easily recognize the characteristics of each of those phases as they progressed (or stalled). I never really thought I’d apply that knowledge to caring for chickens, but then again, most of what I do today, I never thought I’d be doing!
Among the many things we didn’t know when we purchased Wittbrich Acres last fall, was the age of our adopted hens. But even as novice chicken tenders, the lack of egg production told us the vast majority of them were retired to pet-status, which has to be living their great life by chicken standards.
As you’re probably no doubt aware from previous posts, earlier this spring we decided to add to our undetermined aged flock with 12 new hatchlings. Four of the 12 proved to be permanent non-egg layers—being that they were roosters. Oopsie. To compound the error of our foray into chick rearing, we purchased the new additions four weeks apart so we ended up raising two distinct sets of chicks at different phases of development, creating just a little more challenge to an already new experience.
Fast forward through weeks of hand tending, heartbreaking farewells to three of the roos, and tumultuous introductions to each other and to the existing adult flock, the integration of our feathered team is complete for this season. And in the process, I picked up a whole slew of examples I wish I would have had at my disposal during those many years of training human teams how to learn to work together. (Of course, it probably helps that the chickens’ communication skills often seem more respectful and with far fewer agendas than is the case with most humans.)
We started by putting the older chicks into their own enclosure area where they could see, but not come into direct contact with the existing flock. They had their own coop and quickly adjusted to sleeping on a single roosting bar. Over time they enjoyed day visits with the flock and eventually we moved them into the regular coop and filled the now vacant chick house with the second set of chicks to start the introduction process anew. Eventually it came time to move the second set into the main coop on a permanent basis and that’s where the full team forming, norming, storming, and performing of a new team was allowed to flourish in all its clucking glory. I couldn’t help but smile as I once again realized the convergence of my old corporate life with my new homesteading life.
Making a new team
Forming. In this initial stage of team building, the team is put together and is created. Roles are unclear and there is a natural search for a leader among the team members. Watching my chicks explore, duck and cover, cozy up to, or simply ignore other members of the team showed me how they were identifying which of their new teammates they could trust and which they’d avoid.
Storming. Chicken competition and conflict isn’t that much different from the human sort, except there’s less flying feathers in one. There’s still a pecking order as jockeying for power and personality clashing occur, leaving some feeling frustrated or resistant. Emerging flock leaders start figuring out ways to help their followers manage disputes and lots of squawking and posturing occurs. Trust building continues, often taking the form of testing of some sort. In my henhouse, feather plucking isn’t uncommon; in my past boardrooms, if there were feathers that could have been plucked, believe me, they would have been! I like the directness of my chickens far better than I liked the corporate politics I had to navigate for decades.
Norming. In this phase the team members start to gel and resolve their differences. My chickens have identified where they fit in the coop, and have found their own spots on the roosting bars even when it meant displacing others in the inevitable change process. Even my legacy rooster, Norman, has had to adjust to the arrival of Bingo, our new rooster who has knocked Norman from his usual rooster and relegated him to a lower rung. And my new hens are none too shy about declaring their positional power either. In my mind, I can hear my chicks sticking up for themselves saying to their elders, “look, I know you’ve been here longer, but sometimes you have to make room for new thinking, so move aside and give me room to prove my value to the team.” Yay, chick, you’ve got a future here!
Performing. Some teams never fully achieve this stage, which is sad after all the other –ing stages they had to go through. On the other hand, members of high performing teams are motivated and work with strong collaboration and minimal friction. Together, they are focused on delivering results. My adult chickens still like to let the littles know who’s boss when it comes to the feed bowls sometimes, but I don’t think that’ll last much longer as the size gap is quickly closing.
AND, we’ve gotten three tiny eggs from the newbies so far, so that performing has begun! It’ll take a while before egg production reaches any state of consistency, but the natural order of chicken life is taking over without any human intervention.
Honey making machines
News from the hives is good. My fabulous fliers have been busy making honey, and I tried my hand at my first extraction. After a few stumbles, I managed to get my first jars of honey from some early frames. The rest will wait until the end of August when they are fully ready for extraction. For now, I wanted to test my equipment and make sure I had the proper set up in the event I need to make some quick room in the hives if my highly productive bees filled all their available space.
We’re entering the period of time known as the nectar dearth, when most of the natural nectar sources are drying up. This is a risky time for the bees as they need nectar for their own survival, brood feeding, and winter readiness as well as supplying the honey excess. Fortunately, our clover filled grass continues to give them some local food sources which I hope proves sufficient. I am blessed with some great bee mentors who are text messages away from ready advice and drop-by visits to help me when questions and concerns arise.
My goals for my first full year as a novice beekeeper have already been exceeded so I guess I can’t complain. I’ve successfully managed (so far!) my initial two purchased colonies and captured a bonus third wild colony from a tree limb (see last month’s post for that story!). I’ve got good comb development in all three—and that’s important because my bees will have less work to do next spring if they have a ready foundation of strong comb available for their queen to lay new brood. My learning continues about these fascinating creatures and my respect for them grows daily.
And in other news…
I wish I had better news from the gardens. I don’t. My great potato in a barrel experiment failed—too much water got in and rotted them all. I did get a serving or so of green beans so far and I’ve collected a heathy amount of raspberries. Probably most valuably, I learned that the presence of many black walnut trees lining my garden area is a likely nemesis of even my best attempts at growing anything other than weeds.
Little did I know that the invasive root structure contains a toxic chemical compound called juglone which inhibits the growth and survival of many plants as far as 50 to 80 feet away. That explains a lot, even given my lack of green thumbs! Next year, it’s raised garden beds for us. Now if only I could find myself a gardening mentor half as willing to take on a newbie as my bee mentors!
We had a wonderful first 4th of July weekend. We enjoyed our first Union Grove parade and seeing our granddaughter Kaia perform with her dance team, then celebrated the holiday with our son and DIL, including a private fireworks display on their acreage. The next night, we could see the Union Grove fireworks from our deck, an unexpected and wonderful surprise on my favorite annual holiday.
Throughout the month, we had some lovely early morning walks and later evening dinners with various friends and clients and enjoyed every minute of conversation and companionship those out-of-office times together afforded. All-in-all, I’m putting our mid-summer in the “win” column for work and play.
Our journey continues. We’ve travelled 10 months into our new lifestyle and so far have grown through all the bumps and learning opportunities along the way. I’m sure you can almost hear the sound of knocking wood in the distance.
Let’s hope that trend continues and let me know your gardening tips or other comments at tami@toyourwealth.com
Until next month, I’m wishing you days filled with peace, harmony and gratitude from Wittbrich Acres.
