Farmwork|10 weird chicken facts you’ll know only if you’ve been on a farm
The chicken yard after sweeping.
Chickens are perhaps the exemplar of the bird category. Most people have tasted their meat at least once in their lifetime. Their flesh has once traced our bodies as it squishes between our teeth and slides down our esophagus, yet seldom do we see this animal as something other than food. After spending some time working with the chickens in Nick’s farm, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of this strangely ferocious yet timid creature.
Here I present you – 10 weird facts about chickens that I’ve learned so far.
1. Chickens eat everything.
Yes – everything, from the weed I pull out for them every morning to their own kind.
One of my jobs includes checking for bugs on the potato, squash and zucchini plants. Squishing the bugs grosses me out because of their extra “juiciness.” Imagine popping a pimple the size of your fingernail. As much satisfaction as popping an average-sized pimple may bring, it may be a little too much with that much “juice.” Killing them also challenges my ethics. When it comes to their eggs, I wonder: “Is it considered life, right now?” As much as I don’t like doing it, I know that it’s necessary. I rip off the leaves with the bugs and eggs on them and feed them to the chicken. It’s still bug-murdering, but at least I can save myself from the gross part.
Then I come back to pick up the squashes and zucchinis. The chickens actually get first dibs of the squashes! The squashes that have bumpy skin are usually too old to be eaten, so I would go into the yard and feed them to the chickens. I slice them off quickly on a metal sheet covering a chicken cage pretending that I’m playing fruit ninja. It’s oddly satisfying.
A morning after rain, a girl found the chickens happily pecking away on the dead body of another chicken. Merciless cannibals. In China, when children don’t behave, their parents often scare them by saying, “I’ll throw you out to the wolves.” On the farm, throwing out to the chickens might be more realistically scary. Just stay in the chicken yard for a while. Those steel cut beaks will strip you down to the bones, because chickens eat EVERYTHING. Trust me.
The largest zuccini we pulled up.
2. Chickens are dumb
The way they sound, the way they move, the way they react and the fact that their eyes are so far apart make them dumb. They are also heartless and cowardly. Their behaviors seem to be largely dominated by their nervous system instead of their brains. Every action seems to be a bodily reflex to the surrounding instead of one that’s being processed through thought. After I dump fresh grass into the yard, they would all crowd over and start pecking away. They started pecking on their dead companion because it is biologically programmed into them. Some birds, e.g. parakeets, can store memories and develop some sort of friendship with you. Chickens simply scurry away like you’re about to kill them when you’re simply bringing them food. I mean, they probably have a reason to be. If a giant walks behind me and I have no defense mechanism, I’d probably be constantly scared as well.
I guess that’s why chickens are “chickens”
3. Some chickens though… are pretty sly.
Just as there’s an Einstein in the human race, there’s a divergent in every species. Some chickens, are far from dumb. They still seem dumb – but they know what they are doing. Take the first chicken that started pecking the dead body, for example. It is a leader. While chickens are biologically programmed to peck, someone has to start it for other to follow.
As the story goes, there’s a white hen in the farm that’s always on the loose. It’s like a ghost – some volunteers have seen her, but she is too fast for anyone to catch. Every time she sees Nick, she dashes away like a flash of lightning, because according to Nick, she remembers that he kills chickens…
I have never seen this white hen. Either it is still somewhere in hiding, or it had been taken away by some eagles. It is pretty smart. Being chicken keeps you alive.
4. Chickens pee, shit, and lay eggs through the same hole.
A volunteer once asked Nick, “Why do chickens shit on their eggs?”
Nick said, “They don’t. It just all comes through the same hole.”
Chicken poop has a layer of whiteness on it, and the whiteness is its pee. Not only do they come out of the same hole, they come out at the same time.
That volunteer said that she’s never eating eggs again, but then she chugged down a couple more the next day. I, however, solemnly swear that I’m not eating boiled eggs again. Even though the shell might have been cleaned in boiled water, the thought of it having been in contact with chicken poop makes me want to throw up. My lips are NOT touching a chicken butt.
5. Chickens can balance on one leg.
Even though there’s a posture in Chinese wushu called “Golden rooster stands on one leg” (金鸡独立), I could not believe this until I saw it for myself. Chickens have huge butts and teeny tiny short legs, and they wobble like a penguin when they are running away. Standing on one leg seems too much of a challenge for them. But they did it!
The most beautiful rooster in the yard that was born a girl.
6. Chickens can change genders.
One day, I audibly praised the most beautiful rooster in the yard.
“He was born a girl,” Nick said.
“What?! Chickens are transgendered?” I cried.
“No, hermaphrodites.” Nick corrected me.
Wow. Looks like gender fluidity does not only happen with humans. It is a natural phenomenon.
7. Chickens can be trained.
Perhaps yet another evidence of chicken intelligence. Like circus animals, chickens can actually be trained to do special things. I’m sure it takes extra effort, however. Somewhere in North Carolina, in a farm full of chickens, people could drop coins to make chickens do calculations, play the piano, and other non-traditional chicken activities.
8. No… roosters’ crows are not just your alarm clock
The old tale goes: The rooster crows at dawn, and that’s when you should start working. Here, maybe the rooster does crow at dawn, but I never hear it. I do hear it crowing at the most peculiar hours, however – like 7:30 am or 9:00 am. Nick says that roosters also crow when they are defending their territory, like when gorillas pound their chests.
Welp. They didn’t really defend their territory from me. They simply scurried away when I entered their yard…
9. Chickens have a lot of “periods”
Chicken ovulation, mostly commonly known as laying eggs, happen a lot. A hen can lay up to 360 eggs a year! I dub this process “chicken periods,” because hey, we females understand the problem, no?
10. “Easter chickens” lay “Easter eggs”
Different breeds of chickens have different colored egg shells. There is a type of chicken that lays eggs with slightly bluish shells, and are thus dubbed as “Easter eggs.” The color of the yolk also tells a lot about the nutrition component in the eggs. The darker the yolk, the more nutritious it is. Maybe it is like pee – the darker it is, the more substance you’re letting out of your body.
“Do you know what the little white stemmy thing in eggs mean?” Nick asked me.
“That means they could be chickens!” I searched my mind for the word “fertilized,” which sadly didn’t come up.
“No, they are not chickens. They are eggs.”
“They are ‘could-be’ chickens!”
…
As the debate went on, I thought about the bug eggs again. Is ‘could-be’ life also life? Is abortion murder?
*Bonus fact: Guess what? Chicken butt!
Nick trained his volunteers well. We’ve all been programmed like chickens to respond “chicken butt” as soon as he says “guess what.” This old playground verse is going to spread across the world when volunteers return to their home country…
Guess what?
Chicken butt!
Guess why?
Chicken thigh!
Guess how?
Big brown cow!
Comments