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Chickens in Trees
- h2odragon 2y agoThe whole world is full of interesting things to see, new things to learn, if we just look. Humans are gifted at ignoring the miracles that are happening right in front of them, everyday.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- interludead 2y agoThe world is indeed teeming with wonders and taking the time to notice them can bring joy and fulfillment in some ways.
- rdlw 2y agoCathedrals everywhere, for those with the eyes to see
- jmbwell 2y agoI don’t think there’s an XKCD for this, but there is a Sesame Street: https://youtu.be/aCsY3REaADo?si=ODNcG3LvXNPxYSyQ https://youtu.be/aCsY3REaADo?si=ODNcG3LvXNPxYSyQ
- dvh 2y agoChickens can also swim
- interludead 2y agoChickens are amazing creatures
- dtgriscom 2y agoDo they favor the breast stroke?
- huppeldepup 2y agoThey also catch mice and swallow them whole. Jurassic Park style.
- smatija 2y agoMy mother's chickens once caught a snake, stampeded it to death and then promptly ate it. Dinosaurs for sure.
- slow_typist 2y agoInteresting, do you have any sources or pictures?
- pvaldes 2y agoI can confirm at least that on warm water they float as ducks, and seem to enjoy the experience greatly. I was too soaked to appreciate the swimming style. Hum, thinking about it, this is a great meme waiting to happen. All that you need is a warm Olympic swimming pool, to borrow some fatty velociclucktors and the cover of the night. Worldwide fame, here I go again...
- ritwikgupta 2y agoFascinating. The massive variance in the percentage of chickens that prefer roosting off the ground is interesting. I wonder what environmental pressures drives this decision.
- slow_typist 2y agoFox and maybe raccoon are the driving factors where I live. I have also seen cats going for younger smaller chickens. If the owner offers a safe shed which is closed up by night, there is no need for the chickens to rest in trees. They will voluntarily enter the shed in the evening.
- masswerk 2y agoDon't miss the ending!
- pvaldes 2y agoWell... of course. Those are jungle animals. Chickens roost in trees instinctively. Is a relatively safe place for those races that still can fly. Bantams either do it or look for a dense spiny shrub. Industrial races lack the confidence and are too heavy to jump safely without fracturing their hips.
- bagels 2y agoWhether a chicken takes to trees is partly down to the breed. Bigger domesticated breeds are not suited to flying (due to their weight), but can jump up to 4-5 feet. Jungle foul and other smaller breeds can fly up in to trees to roost.
- dajtxx 2y agoMy chickens roost in a tree in the back yard. It's an easy tree for them to get into, they can walk/climb up from the ground a fair way then an easy flap to get to their preferred branches. In summer they disappear into the leaves, but in winter they're pretty obvious.
- culi 2y agoThe argon tree (as in the argon oil in your shampoos and soaps) is also known as the "goat tree". Please peruse these phenomenal photos of trees completely full of goats. Everyone of them looks like an album cover for some mid-00s indie band https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/tree-goats-of-morocco-argan-oil/ https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/tree-goats-of-morocco-argan... https://www.google.com/search?q=argon+goat&udm=2 https://www.google.com/search?q=argon+goat&udm=2
- slow_typist 2y agoI’ve seen both chickens and goats in trees in Germany. It occurs naturally if the owner doesn’t care to much. Of course the goat will eat all the leaves and the tree will die eventually. I really like the pictures from Morroco though, thank you!
- Narishma 2y agoIt's argan, not argon. And the whole goat poop thing is just a urban legend guides like to repeat to naive tourists.
- culi 2y agoThanks for the correction. Not sure what myth you're talking about. Goats are one of the main seed dispersers at this point and overgrazing can even be a problem. Goats do also climb argan trees naturally for fruit, but I looked it up and there is an issue of herders purposefully trying to put many goats into a tree for tourists to take pictures. I'd imagine you wouldn't see a whole dozen of them in a tree like this if they're just grazing alone but they certainly can and do climb trees for fruit. Argan isn't even the only tree they're known to do this with
- Narishma 2y agoThe article you linked has a section about goats eating the argan fruit and pooping the nuts which are then supposedly collected to make argan oil. That's pure BS.
- goshx 2y agoDown in Brazil, my grandfather used to shoot salt at the thieves climbing the trees to steal the chickens.
- tetris11 2y ago> shoot salt I feel you might need to expand here
- defrost 2y agoPainful non lethal shotgun shell filling. Deters thieves without the flesh carnage of lead pellets | buckshot.
- itsanaccount 2y agoand for some Appalachian wisdom fill em with coal dust and you mark em so you can find em later.
- actionfromafar 2y agoSocial policing. :)
- ragazzina 2y agoI wish there was a way to do this with food in a common fridge, in my office.
- throwaway2037 2y agoRelated: "The proclivity of free-ranging indigenous village chickens for night-time roosting in trees" [1] [1] https://cabiagbio.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s43170-021-00040-z https://cabiagbio.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s43170-...
- tracker1 2y agoOn population control... Are they generally considered safe to eat? That's the first thing I think of in this case...
- bagels 2y agoThe meat would probably be really tough. I'd think the only acceptable preparation would be braising or confit. They probably have a lot more parasites (worms) than you'd be used to as well.
- peterleiser 2y agoI stayed in Kauai in 2012 and the locals said they do not eat the chickens. They said the meat is very tough and doesn't taste very good. They also said the chickens are useful because they eat millipedes, which are everywhere. They claimed that the sting from being bitten by one of those millipedes is unbelievably painful, and feels like a gun shot. I'm not sure about the gun shot part, but everyone seemed pretty serious about how painful it feels.
- trealira 2y agoThere's an ant called the bullet ant, so named because its sting feels like getting shot. Its Wikipedia page shows other similar nicknames in Spanish and in Portuguese. So, given that other bugs' stings have already been described as comparable to getting shot, I believe it when you say that they say the millipede's bite feels equally painful. Its Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera_clavata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera_clavata
- nradov 2y agoThe localsn in Maui have a recipe for cooking the feral chickens there. Put the chicken in a pot. Add a lava rock. Fill with water. Boil until the rock is soft.
- pvaldes 2y ago
- emacsen 2y agoNow I have that darn Sesame Street song stuck in my head. There are chickens in the trees There are chickens in the trees Won't you listen to me please There are chickens in the trees https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCsY3REaADo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCsY3REaADo
- tetris11 2y agoCities in Flight is what immediately sprang to my mind
- keiferski 2y agoBy the title, I thought this was going to be about the theorized future of meat production as a kind of fruit, i. e., “chicken flesh growing on trees,” and the ethical questions surrounding that idea and the positivist worldview that leads to it being considered ethical, and if it is actually a good thing or not. It would be an ironic (and sad?) thing if the human history of the chicken began in trees and ended in trees.
- floren 2y agoMark Twain wrote some humorous bits about how chickens may be enticed out of a neighbor's tree by sliding a warm board under their feet. They'll step on happily, and can then be conveyed to a convenient sack en route to the kitchen.
- resolutebat 2y agoThe domesticated chicken (Gallus domesticus) is a "curated" version of the Red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) which lives wild in the tropics, can fly short distances and is still entirely capable of breeding with chickens. The parks of Singapore are full of the things, and it's not unusual to see one strutting past the chicken rice stall at a hawker center, clucking at its unfortunate relatives that have been poached and strung up by their feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_junglefowl
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- ggm 2y agoInteresting timing: rogue chickens in the UK causing mayhem to locals because 200 chooks in the woods is ... noisy.
- tomcam 2y agoI made the mistake of buying chickens as livestock. I fell in love with the day-old chicks the moment we got into the car to take them home. Plan was that 1/3 would become food, 1/3 would die of disease, and the remainder would lay eggs. Unfortunately I lost my taste for chicken. We lost 1/3 due to predators, not disease, despite building a $20,000 chicken run. I was depressed for months. And I have been through some heinous shit in my long life. They make lovely sounds and they live next to my office so working at home is delightful. They are endlessly silly. They are manipulative. They are dignified and stupid. Their plumage is a miracle of biology. They aren’t particularly friendly. I have no clue why I adore them. Had no idea that such stupid little dinosaurs would change my life so dramatically.
- globular-toast 2y agoA lot more people would be veggie if they had to kill the animals themselves. You just wouldn't do it unless you were really hungry, which I doubt anyone on this forum has experienced even once.
- margor 2y agoSorry to break your bubble, but this is how people normally live on countrysides / small villages, at least in my country. Killing livestock animals is everyday thing and no one bats an eye. Hell, even killing new born kittens / puppies is considered by some normal thing, if they breed uncontrolled (even if they could just... castrate / neuter them [not sure which is the right word for it, I'm not native]). After all how is it different from a full grown chicken, other than the fact you don't normally eat cats/dogs?
- actionfromafar 2y agoWhy would any of that refute "a lot more would be vegetarian"?
- yurishimo 2y agoBecause there are plenty of people who don't kill/eat certain animals but do slaughter other animals. This person in the thread described their new love for chickens, but I have a good feeling that they probably still eat beef or pork. But the "solution" to the vegan problem cannot be to surround everyone with farm animals, because when that was true for most people (100+ years ago), everyone ate meat that they killed themselves. I think any good person can understand and empathize with the modern day practices of factory farming and meat production, but the solutions coming from vegans are also untenable in the face of human history. We can move away from unethical farming practices without removing meat from our diets and ignoring the absolutely huge benefits of eating meat as humans.
- lrvick 2y agoIf anyone is ever in Florida, stop by Oviedo which is home to a colony of feral chickens that sleep in the trees of the town shopping center parking lot and are found eating scraps daily at the local KFC drive through. There is a mini documentary out there on said chickens. They are kind of the town mascots.
- b112 2y agoOne case of mad chicken disease coming up, although chickens don't really need their head. https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/running-ponies/meet-miracle-mike-the-chicken-who-lived-for-18-months-without-his-head/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/running-ponies/meet-...
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoI remember in Morocco, they had tree-climbing goats. You'd be driving down the highway, and pass a bunch of trees, dripping with goats, and the goatherd, sitting nearby, looking bored.
- vertnerd 2y agoWe keep chickens, but I rarely find them in trees. We also keep a heritage breed of turkey, the Royal Palm, and those guys love to sleep in the trees. If you ever decide to start keeping chickens or turkeys, you will discover that most of the things you thought you knew about birds are wrong. They are fascinating creatures.
- dredmorbius 2y agoI'm extraordinarily disappointed that Doug Zongker's seminal work in the field was not mentioned or cited: <https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf https://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf> Previously on HN: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35745880 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35745880> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5830497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5830497> And a dang compilation from 2023: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35746402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35746402> Video: <http://yewtu.be/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk http://yewtu.be/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk>
- spetryk 2y agoAuthor here (of the blog post, not of the literary beauty you linked). This is amazing. I'll add a mention.
- dredmorbius 2y agoChicken!!!
- smeej 2y ago> ...casting nervous glances at a rooster slowly approaching me like a Weeping Angel. > Don't blink. Don't even blink. Blink and you're dead. They [the Weeping Angels] are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don't turn your back. Don't turn away. And most of all, don't blink. I know this has nothing to do with the point of the article, but Weeping Angels are exactly the wrong analogy for something approaching slowly!
- crashmat 2y agoI think the comparison was more based on the rooster approaching when they werent looking and stopping when they were. I can't recall any other monsters that do that.
- spetryk 2y agoIndeed, this is the part of the behavior I was referring to :) It's a good point about the speed though - not the perfect analogy.
- throwaway73375 2y agoCats.
- helsinkiandrew 2y agoRelated: a flock of 100 feral chickens living in the woods is "tormenting" a village in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/26/out-of-control-flock-of-100-feral-chickens-torments-village-norfolk https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/26/out-...
- totetsu 2y agoIf you want the tree roosting experience at home https://www.iozon.co.jp/english/c-couch/ https://www.iozon.co.jp/english/c-couch/
- aj_icracked 2y agoAwww I love seeing chicken lovers on HN threads! I started a company called Coop specifically to make it much easier and accessible for anyone with a backyard to raise chickens. We make cameras that do a bunch of computer vision work for predator detection, door alerts, egg alerts, etc. We're at the point where we can now notify people that, "hey, raccoon is detected, door is closed and all chickens are safe". It's been a super fun company to build and right now 59% of our customers have never raised chickens before. I've always wanted to blend backyard agriculture with smart home technology and it seems to be working. Keep up the chicken-love!! Our website is www.coop.farm if anyone is interested or has feedback!
- hiatus 2y agoLooked interesting until I saw that there's a monthly fee. > Just like your own flock, we need to feed ours in order to get eggs. That’s why our membership is required to unlock the full intelligence of your coop.
- becomevocal 2y agoVery cool product! We got into chickens a few years ago and it’s taken over our life in a good way. Sounds like we’re in a similar boat as tomcam :) I remember the first time my wife saw your coop, she said “that is what I wanted to build”, so you probably have some product market fit going on. We had already built our run at that time, however now she thinks a good supplemental product idea is a feeder with a camera. Like Petcube combined with the Grandpa’s Feeders product. She would definitely be up to chat about her chicken keeping needs and all the ideas that come with it. Her details are on her blog: tropicalchicki.com Note for other HN peeps: If you really like cats and nature you probably will like chicken keeping! They have lots of personality and communicate in more ways than we are typically taught. On the article, I wonder if people commonly see their first chickens in trees on islands. It’s a common thing in PR, which also has a lot of wild chickens roaming. Vieques, the smaller sister island off the east coast of PR, kind of celebrates this. Lots of chicken murals, themed gifts, names of beaches, etc
- aj_icracked 2y ago
- bloomingeek 2y agoWhat little experience I have is this: If a coop or other protective area isn't available at night, chickens will roost in a tree until daylight. (their vision is very poor in the dark, so running to escape isn't a real option at night.) The problem with tree roosting at night is owls or other night predators. The owls will position on the trunk side of the limb and side-walk the chicken towards the end of the limb until they fall to the ground, and then well, you know. A friend of mine always checks his small flock just before dark for escapees from the coop. If the count is off, he always looks in the near-by trees.
- SoftTalker 2y ago> did the cats eat the chickens and take their place Maybe not the adults, who are big enough to be a challenge, but almost certainly the chicks. A friend of mine who lives on a farm was trying to get ducks to live on his pond. He was advised to shoot all the feral cats he could find, which he did. He still has something of a problem with snapping turtles nabbing the ducklings as they swim, but he's working on that too.