If you think the soap operas on TV are full of drama, then you haven’t spent an afternoon with my chickens. These animals are sometimes worse than the most vicious gossips in the village. The other day, one of our feathered ladies somehow managed to hurt herself—just a little, just enough for a drop of blood to appear. And that’s when it started.
Chickens have one very special “trait”: when they see the color red on a fellow chicken, they completely lose it. Instead of asking her if she needed a band-aid, they started pecking her right where it hurt. As if they had some kind of Fight Club in the coop, where the rules are clear: if you’re bleeding, you’re a target. The poor thing didn’t even know where the attacks were coming from, while the others were in a frenzy, as if they were in the ring for a world title.
I admit, at first I didn’t quite know why they were so relentless, but then I came to understand their cruel biology. Chickens are, after all, descendants of dinosaurs, and a wild instinct still smolders within them. When they see blood, their so-called cannibalistic instinct is awakened. In nature, a bleeding hen attracts predators (such as a fox or a vulture), which endangers the entire flock. That’s why the others start pecking at her—not because they’re deliberately cruel, but because they instinctively want to “remove” the weak link to protect the group. There’s simply no room for compassion in a chicken coop, only for the survival of the fittest.
I watched this horror and thought: “Come on, are you guys normal?” But chickens don’t know empathy; they know only instinct and pecking until the bitter end. The situation became so serious that it was clear—there would be no peace in this coop as long as the poor thing was there. Since we didn’t want her sisters to peck her to death, Dad had to step in.
Dad resolved the situation quickly, using common sense. “Eva, there’s no helping it,” he said, and put the hen out of her misery so she could finally find peace from her ‘friends.’ Now the coop is quiet again, and the hens are acting as if nothing happened, calmly waiting for the next opportunity for drama.
Life on the farm teaches you that nature isn’t always gentle. If you’re looking for solidarity, don’t look for it in the nest, because at the first sign of trouble, they’d rather turn you into a snack than help you.
Hugs, Eva
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