The call of the wild is in the chicken’s heart, too. Far from being “chicken,” roosters and hens are legendary for bravery.
Rooster and hen looking over chicks, Cayman Chickens - photo by Davida G.
Breier...
In August I posted Chickens Are NOT Cannibals. A post coauthored by Carol Adams and Marc Bekoff on October 28, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Didn't Die Like a Dog, has inspired me to say further that chickens are not cowards, either. Chickens are not “chicken.” Therefore, they cannot be invoked as a metaphor for human cowardice except as an ironic or uninformed cliché.
Donald Trump asserted on October 27 that the head of ISIS “died like a dog. He died like a coward.” Adams and Bekoff point out that Abu Baur al-Baghdadi did not “die like a dog.” However he may have died, dogs do not generally die, or for that matter live, like cowards. Chickens don’t, either.
Bravery of Chickens
Bantu crowing - UPC Sanctuary Rooster (1990‑2000)
The call of the wild is in the chicken’s heart, too. Far from being
“chicken,” roosters and hens are legendary for bravery. In classical times,
the bearing of the rooster symbolized military valor: his crest stood for
the soldier’s helmet and his spurs stood for the sword (Smith and Daniel,
66). A chicken will stand up to an adult human being.1 Our tiny bantam
rooster, Bantu, would flash out of the bushes and repeatedly attack our
legs, his body tense, his eyes riveted on our shins, lest we should threaten
his beloved hens.
An annoyed hen will confront a pesky young rooster with her hackles raised,
and run him off! Though chickens will fight fiercely and successfully with
foxes and eagles to protect their family, with humans such bravery usually
does not win. A woman employed on a breeder farm in Maryland wrote a letter
to the newspaper, berating the defenders of chickens for trying to make her
lose her job, threatening her ability to support herself and her daughter
(Sadler).
For her, “breeder” hens were “mean” birds who “peck your arm when you are
trying to collect the eggs.” In her defense of her life and her daughter’s
life against the champions of chickens, she failed to see the comparison
between her motherly protection of her child and the captive hen’s
courageous effort to protect her own children.
In an outdoor chicken flock, ritual and playful sparring and chasing
normally suffice to maintain peace and resolve disputes without actual
bloodshed. Even hens occasionally have a go at each other, but in 35 years
of keeping chickens, I have never seen a hen-fight, with its ritualized
postures and gestures, turn seriously violent or last for more than a few
minutes. Chickens have a natural sense of order and learn quickly from each
other. An exasperated bird will either move away from the offender or else
aim a peck, or a pecking gesture (I’ve seen this many times) that sends a
message – “lay off” or “back off!”
Bloody battles, as when a new bird is introduced into an established flock,
are rare, short-lived, and usually affect the comb (the crest on top of a
chicken’s head), which, being packed with blood vessels, can make an injury
look worse than it is. It’s when chickens are crowded, confined, bored, or
forced to compete at a feeder that distempered behavior can erupt. However,
chickens allowed to grow up in successive generations unconfined do not
evince a rigid “pecking order” (Smith and Daniel, 165-166, 316). Parents
oversee their young, and the young contend playfully, among many other
activities. A flock of well-acquainted adults is an amiable social group.
Sometimes chickens run away; however, fleeing from a bully or a hereditary
predator-species on legs designed for the purpose does not constitute
cowardice.
Chick, hen and rooster walking side by side, Cayman Chickens - photo by
Davida G. Breier...
Scientists Cite Courage in Roosters and Hens, But “No Serious
Fights”
In a field study of feral chickens on a coral island northeast of
Queensland, Australia in the 1960s, G. McBride and his colleagues recorded
the birds’ social and parental behavior over the course of a year. Here is
how they describe the birds’ response to a perceived threat to their chicks.
When a hen with very young chicks was disturbed by a man, she gave a full
display and the alarm cackle. When pressed closely, she hid her chicks by
regularly turning and making a short charge at her pursuer. As she turned,
she pushed one or two of her chicks into a hollow, while giving a
particularly loud squawk among her clucks.
Once the chicks were all safely hidden, the hen raised an alarm call that
was echoed by the distant roosters who came to her. In the following scene,
we see the rooster with his hens and their young:
When the group moves, the rooster gathers the hens together before moving.
The hens keep contact with him while moving, and he controls their movement
when crossing open ground. When disturbed, he gives the alarm call and walks
parallel to the predator or potential predator while the hens quietly hide.
When the flock was disturbed, the roosters were observed to drive the hens
away, by rushing toward them with their wings spread. While the hens
foraged, the roosters spent the majority of their time on guard in their
tail-up, wing-down alert posture. Roosters used the broody hen display when
charging: tail fanned, wings down, feathers puffed.
Occasionally, roosters from other territories joined the flock, but
according to the investigators, “No serious fights were observed during any
of these intrusions, though the males made several rushes at each other”
(35). Typically, the “trespassing territorial males left after a contest
involving crowing, display and territorial tidbitting.”2 In the non-breeding
season, the areas became overlapping territories in which all of the birds
and their progeny mingled. The only real fight the investigators ever saw
among roosters took place in a pen, and this fight, which for one bird was
fatal, they attribute to “the restriction of movements in the pen, as well
as to the inability of a defeated bird to escape by flying into a tree”
(158).
Cayman Chicken - photo by Davida G. Breier...
Notes
References
Karen Davis, PhD is the President and Founder of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl including a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Inducted into the National Animal Rights Hall of Fame for Outstanding Contributions to Animal Liberation, Karen is the author of numerous books, essays, articles and campaigns. Her latest book is For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation: Essays on Chickens, Turkeys, and Other Domesticated Fowl (Lantern Books, 2019).