Man, chickens are absurdly good company. You get one that’s well socialized, and they’re just happy to be near you, making cute little noises and looking all sweet. They’re still apex predators in a prey animal size, so you know, watch your fingers and toes or they’ll get tested for edibility, frequently.
That’s the down side of chickens. Brains the size of peas and about half as smart as a pea lol.
Pros : all the things you said and then some.
Cons : no sphincters control
Had a great chicken that hung out with us all the time. She would follow us around everywhere. She liked to help pull weeds. She also refused to sleep in the coop and 2 weeks ago got her head ripped off by a skunk. My wife cried for a week straight. She was too independent.
Man, that’s a shame. But there’s a limit to how much you can force a chicken into the coop. You do it often enough, and they stop letting you pick them up without a struggle, which kinda defeats the whole thing imo.
We have a volunteer hen (a feral girl that shares the yard with us) that disappears for days at a time, and I worry about her getting killed by something, but it’s one of those things that keeping her safe would not only be difficult, but would make her scared of us instead of mostly friendly.
Luckily, the full on pet hen loves the coop, and stays in it by preference when she’s outside at night (she usually sleeps inside, but sometimes decides she’s not in the mood lol), so she can be as safe as any chicken in a coop gets.
They really are amazing lol.
As soon as they run out of food they start following me all over the yard. Only one of them will actually peck at me, and she’s the top of the pecking order.
It is so fun to watch them and envision them as tiny little T-rex’s. And pretend full-size T-rex’s behaved the way they do.
And the noises! In my imagination, all dinosaurs are just loud chickens. A t-rex opens it’s mouth, and out comes “brrraaawwwk”
Lol I was joking with a smoking buddy yesterday, watching the chickens, thinking that if they ever remake Jurassic Park (which im sure they will), they should use a chicken sound for the roar.
So you’re saying we should be engineering smart companion chickens then
Exactly!
Apparently chickens are extremely good at stabilizing their head and aiming straight at something even if the chicken itself is flying all over the place, as they can’t move their eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEGZ7hGaMNI
Might make a good main gunner too, with the appropriate rig. Throw that thing on an old, unstabilized T-34, and now you’re talking.
Chickens can be the best mix of calm but curious. They won’t want to run right at it, but you better believe they’re going to watch whatever it was with that little head tilt they do.
Birds, long known for good vision and patriotism
https://www.military-history.org/feature/pigeon-guided-missiles.htm
US Coast Guard used them for search and rescue too, called Project Sea Hunt.
Is it just me or does that guy look like John Cena?
I can’t see it
Best I got.
This feels like something from a boomer fb group.
