Chickens however, are a whole other story. I’ve always had a fascination for chickens, but I don’t know why. They’re wonderfully complex, in my opinion. Though people often think of chickens as dumb animals—I heard a story once about their innate mothering abilities. Once, someone put a duck egg under a nesting hen. She sat on the egg until it hatched and a duckling appeared with the rest of her chicks. She set out with the chicks, walking them around the farm until she came to a small pond. Then, she stopped and walked out with the duckling, encouraging it to get into the water, nudging it along until it finally stumbled in.

Now, one thing that intrigues me about that story—I’m pretty positive what keeps baby ducks buoyant is an oil on their feathers that their mother produces for them until they secrete it on their own (she rubs it onto them as they nest beneath her). So—who knows if the duck could swim anyway? But…I still think the story is sweet—perhaps that’s partly why chickens are also called mother hens. Of course, I’m not going to overly romanticize the species—they can also be exasperatingly stupid at times.

There’s also a documentary about chickens, titled The Natural History of Chickens. Apparently, a man cut his chicken’s head off and it ran around for awhile—but didn’t stop. Shocked by this Lazarus of a chicken, he decided to see if it would continue to live. He fed the little chicken with an eye dropper, and apparently the wound healed over and the chicken lived for some time (almost two years, I think?) touring around the country as a famous, living, headless chicken. I know the story sounds preposterous, but it’s in the documentary. Refute it if you will.

In another municipality, Kiangan, the locals have a special connection with chickens—they’re used regularly in rituals as a sacrifice for spirits and ancestors (and later eaten), they’re consumed as food, the eggs are eaten, etc. So, it’s actually considered quite bad to kill a chicken on accident—like with a vehicle. The driver has to pay a hefty sum of money to the owner because not only has he killed a chicken, he’s taken away the future eggs from that chicken and the future chicks from that chicken, which could have become roosters or laying hens. So the offender ends up paying for not only the single entity, but two generations of progeny to come.

I think that’s an interesting way of looking at things.
p.s. baby chicks are ridiculously cute.