Happy to explain!
See, chickens are omnivorous. They eat bugs, plants, and meatstuffs. Y'know how crows and ravens and things eat meat? Well, chickens too. Ours had a particular fondness for ham when someone accidentally put it into the bucket of good scraps we set aside for the chickens. A bucket we tried to keep as meat-free as possible, because few things are more terrifying than a chicken looking you in the eyes as it scarfs down ham.
Anyway, back to the mouse.
One day i was doing Chicken Chores, like gathering eggs, putting out grain, emptying the bucket of greens, etc, when a mouse runs across the pen.
All at once, eight or so chickens stop dead, look at it, and SWARM.
Now I’m six at this point in time and developing a healthy fear of chickens, and so do nothing.
By the time the chickens are done, all that is left of the mouse is its bones. I left the chicken pen very, very quickly.
Chickens crave meat. They were dinosaurs. They did not forget that they were dinosaurs.
They will also cannibalize each other with reckless abandon. Sometimes we just had to remove one chicken to its own private pen away from the others because no matter what we did, that specific one always tried to eat the other chickens. We had one that really liked other chicken’s eyes. Bear in mind, our pens ensured each chicken had about five to six square feet all its own if you managed to space every chicken out evenly, we never locked them in teensy pen things, and fed them LOTS. These chickens just really, really wanted to maim.
Chickens that are not Buff Orpingtons are the devil. Buff Orpingtons are sweethearts. If you must have chickens, have that kind. And never get Guineas. Guineas are SATAN INCARNATE. THEY SMELL FEAR.
