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Yeah....chickens are assholes. They'll come at you. They'll tear each other up pretty good too. I've seen them go after dogs before. They really are like watchi

Yeah....chickens are assholes. They'll come at you. They'll tear each other up pretty good too. I've seen them go after dogs before. They really are like watching little dinosaurs.

gatherhunterer 8y ago
My first thought was that they had no idea it was a fox and were just trying to kill something. The reason poultry feed has to be scattered over a wide area is that they will peck through other chickens, killing them in the process, before turning and eating from an open spot if they feel they need to compete for food. Turkeys are worse than chickens. An amish turkey farmer once told me that if you leave a bucket of feed with the turkeys you’ll end up with a bucket of dead, half-eaten turkeys and all of the feed you started with.
- koolba 8y ago
  Yes it’s common to clip their beaks when they’re young to prevent nipping at each other.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  I understand that they'd kill each other, but why would they all kill each other, who eats them, and who puts the carcasses in the bucket? So many questions this raises...
  - gatherhunterer 8y ago
    They get into the bucket to get the food and are pecked to death by the one that climbs in on top of them, and so on.
    - StavrosK 8y ago
      Oh wow, that's brutal. Thanks for explaining.
lolc 8y ago
If you've ever watched a chicken hunt mice, you know what mammals went through the last 200 million years.
- chimprich 8y ago
  I have seen a chicken hunting mice. It's absolutely astounding. Before seeing it in action I had no idea chickens would go after such large prey, or that they would be such efficient hunters. They must have amazing eyesight, or some other ability to detect prey, because they appear to be able to detect hiding rodents from a long way away. This was a local wild chicken that had presumably escaped from a coop, and it appeared to sustain itself on mice all summer.
  - freyir 8y ago
    For the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBFXzyp3sks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBFXzyp3sks
  - marcotaves 8y ago
    For someone who has seen a turtle(!) blazingly fast (need sound effects? It was like Vupt!) catch a pigeon by the neck like a camaleon grabs a mosquito...No surprise...I have see chicken following the "master" by the streets like a dog, no string attached, but the "owner" carries a little stick and sometimes give a little vupt! on the chickens side of the body to keep her on its delimited walking area...No analogies here, please...just a story I tell... The most amazing "bird flock defense" I have seen is that of a group of 30 to 50 scissor-tails , how do you calll.Ah yes...Swallow, almost forgot, how come I almost forgot...memory is shit recently...gosh... Yeas a small Gaviao, maybe is kind of like a small falcon, but very small specie of falcon...but can knock a Swallow down while having siesta and chewing sugarcane at the same time, but...20 swallows diving at high speed and almost touching the falcons head, the falcon just stay there, standing in the roof, ignoring the swallows almost conpletely, ignore, and the swallow only rarely touch his body only when they are sure a reflex of the falcon will no fuck their acrobatical aerial dive, well, not kids play and the swallow does not enjoy and does not do it for fun...Probably there was a nest of baby swallows nearby and the falcon choose a not good place to be standing at that time...but then at some point of 2 swallows almost hit per second, like 50 swallow dives over him every minute, well...he went to stand on some other roof... very interesting...maybe more then 30 years ago...dont remember well... thanks...
btilly 8y ago
The worst that I ever saw was one chicken deliberately scaring another chicken into an oncoming car, then rushing in to eat the victim's guts. I saw this 2 months ago in Thailand.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  How do you know it was deliberate?
  - vezycash 8y ago
    Crows are known to drop nuts on highways for cars to crack em up. They've also learned to read traffic lights to know when it's safe to pick up their bounty. However, chickens aren't known to be planners.
  - btilly 8y ago
    I couldn't read the chicken's mind. But it waited a good long time for a car to come down that road before doing its thing. I would have had trouble believing it to be a lucky (for it) accident.
- mruts 8y ago
  That's a pretty good strat, I guess.
lostlogin 8y ago
They can get really savage if they see blood. Watching someone in jandals with red nail polish go near some was quite the scene.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  Confused at why comments like this get downvoted. What does that signify?
  - mfoy_ 8y ago
    Chickens have this weird "IT'S BLEEDING. MURDER IT!" kinda vibe. There's literally rose-tinted glasses you can glue onto their beaks so they can't really perceive red. This prevents them from pecking each-other to death. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_eyeglasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_eyeglasses
bluedino 8y ago
Geese will do a pretty good number on a kid. 'Biting', honking, my grandmother had a few geese when we were growing up and I got attacked a few times coming in the drive, and my younger brother was absolutely terrified of them
- grawprog 8y ago
  Also, geese hiss....there's something about things that hiss at you. One of the more harrowing things i've done was a day addling geese eggs on a lake where they're overpopulated. There was two of us.in the canoe. Whenever we found a nest we'd switch duties between sneaking up to the nest to do the egg addling, while the other stood guard with a paddle to ward off the attacking geese.
  - marcotaves 8y ago
    I really dont understand that way of clotroling overpopulation... lack of creativity, maybe, to Think another way... tremember me of South Park cartoon scene, where they swoosh! Bison in the prairies with Second world war style Flametrowers! yes...flamethrowers haha , to control the overpopulation of Bisons in the prairies...burn them all like the Mad King of game of thrones...people are so crazy, even good people make uncomprehensibly sounding shit... well...learning everyday a little more... I learn... thanks
- gadders 8y ago
  When we bought our first four geese, we had one gander that was just mean like you occasionally get with a rooster. He managed to chase my daughter's friend and scratch the back of her leg with his claws. (Geese have surprisingly sharp claws at the end of their webbed feet).
RussianCow 8y ago
When I was two, my family took me to my grandma's farm, where she had all kinds of animals, including chickens. As a curious two-year-old, I ran up to the chicken pen to take a look, and a rooster lunged at me aggressively. Luckily there was wire between us, so no harm done, but it scared me so much that I had nightmares about that rooster for the next ten years. We had that rooster for dinner that night, so he got what he deserved. :)
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  Ouch! Sounds more like you had him for dinner and he got his revenge by haunting you for 10 years...
  - RussianCow 8y ago
    Ha! I never thought of it that way! Yes maybe it was karma but not against the rooster.
Insanity 8y ago
Speaking of them being assholes, won't they also pick at their _own_ eggs?
- vezycash 8y ago
  They do. That's why collection is done early and throughout the day. Battery cages are slightly sloped so that eggs roll out of the cage, out of reach of the birds and for easy egg collection by workers.
- sushisushisushi 8y ago
  "These animals I've imprisoned to exploit for my own ends are assholes"

Yeah....chickens are assholes. They'll come at you. They'll tear each other up pretty good too. I've seen them go after dogs before. They really are like watching little dinosaurs.

gatherhunterer 8y ago

My first thought was that they had no idea it was a fox and were just trying to kill something. The reason poultry feed has to be scattered over a wide area is that they will peck through other chickens, killing them in the process, before turning and eating from an open spot if they feel they need to compete for food. Turkeys are worse than chickens. An amish turkey farmer once told me that if you leave a bucket of feed with the turkeys you’ll end up with a bucket of dead, half-eaten turkeys and all of the feed you started with.

koolba 8y ago
Yes it’s common to clip their beaks when they’re young to prevent nipping at each other.
StavrosK 8y ago
I understand that they'd kill each other, but why would they all kill each other, who eats them, and who puts the carcasses in the bucket? So many questions this raises...
- gatherhunterer 8y ago
  They get into the bucket to get the food and are pecked to death by the one that climbs in on top of them, and so on.
  - StavrosK 8y ago
    Oh wow, that's brutal. Thanks for explaining.

lolc 8y ago

If you've ever watched a chicken hunt mice, you know what mammals went through the last 200 million years.

chimprich 8y ago
I have seen a chicken hunting mice. It's absolutely astounding. Before seeing it in action I had no idea chickens would go after such large prey, or that they would be such efficient hunters. They must have amazing eyesight, or some other ability to detect prey, because they appear to be able to detect hiding rodents from a long way away. This was a local wild chicken that had presumably escaped from a coop, and it appeared to sustain itself on mice all summer.
- freyir 8y ago
  For the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBFXzyp3sks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBFXzyp3sks
- marcotaves 8y ago
  For someone who has seen a turtle(!) blazingly fast (need sound effects? It was like Vupt!) catch a pigeon by the neck like a camaleon grabs a mosquito...No surprise...I have see chicken following the "master" by the streets like a dog, no string attached, but the "owner" carries a little stick and sometimes give a little vupt! on the chickens side of the body to keep her on its delimited walking area...No analogies here, please...just a story I tell... The most amazing "bird flock defense" I have seen is that of a group of 30 to 50 scissor-tails , how do you calll.Ah yes...Swallow, almost forgot, how come I almost forgot...memory is shit recently...gosh... Yeas a small Gaviao, maybe is kind of like a small falcon, but very small specie of falcon...but can knock a Swallow down while having siesta and chewing sugarcane at the same time, but...20 swallows diving at high speed and almost touching the falcons head, the falcon just stay there, standing in the roof, ignoring the swallows almost conpletely, ignore, and the swallow only rarely touch his body only when they are sure a reflex of the falcon will no fuck their acrobatical aerial dive, well, not kids play and the swallow does not enjoy and does not do it for fun...Probably there was a nest of baby swallows nearby and the falcon choose a not good place to be standing at that time...but then at some point of 2 swallows almost hit per second, like 50 swallow dives over him every minute, well...he went to stand on some other roof... very interesting...maybe more then 30 years ago...dont remember well... thanks...

btilly 8y ago

The worst that I ever saw was one chicken deliberately scaring another chicken into an oncoming car, then rushing in to eat the victim's guts. I saw this 2 months ago in Thailand.

ekianjo 8y ago
How do you know it was deliberate?
- vezycash 8y ago
  Crows are known to drop nuts on highways for cars to crack em up. They've also learned to read traffic lights to know when it's safe to pick up their bounty. However, chickens aren't known to be planners.
- btilly 8y ago
  I couldn't read the chicken's mind. But it waited a good long time for a car to come down that road before doing its thing. I would have had trouble believing it to be a lucky (for it) accident.
mruts 8y ago
That's a pretty good strat, I guess.

lostlogin 8y ago

They can get really savage if they see blood. Watching someone in jandals with red nail polish go near some was quite the scene.

mehrdadn 8y ago
Confused at why comments like this get downvoted. What does that signify?
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  Chickens have this weird "IT'S BLEEDING. MURDER IT!" kinda vibe. There's literally rose-tinted glasses you can glue onto their beaks so they can't really perceive red. This prevents them from pecking each-other to death. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_eyeglasses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_eyeglasses

bluedino 8y ago

Geese will do a pretty good number on a kid. 'Biting', honking, my grandmother had a few geese when we were growing up and I got attacked a few times coming in the drive, and my younger brother was absolutely terrified of them

grawprog 8y ago
Also, geese hiss....there's something about things that hiss at you. One of the more harrowing things i've done was a day addling geese eggs on a lake where they're overpopulated. There was two of us.in the canoe. Whenever we found a nest we'd switch duties between sneaking up to the nest to do the egg addling, while the other stood guard with a paddle to ward off the attacking geese.
- marcotaves 8y ago
  I really dont understand that way of clotroling overpopulation... lack of creativity, maybe, to Think another way... tremember me of South Park cartoon scene, where they swoosh! Bison in the prairies with Second world war style Flametrowers! yes...flamethrowers haha , to control the overpopulation of Bisons in the prairies...burn them all like the Mad King of game of thrones...people are so crazy, even good people make uncomprehensibly sounding shit... well...learning everyday a little more... I learn... thanks
gadders 8y ago
When we bought our first four geese, we had one gander that was just mean like you occasionally get with a rooster. He managed to chase my daughter's friend and scratch the back of her leg with his claws. (Geese have surprisingly sharp claws at the end of their webbed feet).

RussianCow 8y ago

When I was two, my family took me to my grandma's farm, where she had all kinds of animals, including chickens. As a curious two-year-old, I ran up to the chicken pen to take a look, and a rooster lunged at me aggressively. Luckily there was wire between us, so no harm done, but it scared me so much that I had nightmares about that rooster for the next ten years. We had that rooster for dinner that night, so he got what he deserved. :)

mehrdadn 8y ago
Ouch! Sounds more like you had him for dinner and he got his revenge by haunting you for 10 years...
- RussianCow 8y ago
  Ha! I never thought of it that way! Yes maybe it was karma but not against the rooster.

Insanity 8y ago

Speaking of them being assholes, won't they also pick at their _own_ eggs?

vezycash 8y ago
They do. That's why collection is done early and throughout the day. Battery cages are slightly sloped so that eggs roll out of the cage, out of reach of the birds and for easy egg collection by workers.
sushisushisushi 8y ago
"These animals I've imprisoned to exploit for my own ends are assholes"