What are some of the most mind-blowing facts about chickens that few people actually know??

[Bekalodon]

Chickens are one of the few animals not originally domesticated for food. (They were probably originally domesticated for ritual/religious usage and/or cockfighting, and then people realized they and their eggs were tasty.)

Chickens were most likely first brought to South America by ancient Polynesian voyagers almost 300 years before the Spanish arrived.

L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz books, was a huge chicken fancier and wrote a book on the keeping of chickens. Other famous chicken fanciers include Charles Darwin (author of The Origin of Species and co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection) and Queen Victoria, who received the first Cochins in the British Isles as a gift and helped spark the "Hen Fever" that burned through the UK and the US in the later half of the 19th century.

For more on the history of the Domestic Chicken, I highly recommend Why Did the Chicken Cross the World? by Andrew Lawler. I am currently reading it and it is a very interesting and informative read.

 

[User690263]

My chickens will eat alfalfa pellets that are the size of their beaks. And they like it.

 

[Squawkers]

The only thing that seems crazy to me is their relation to T-Rex.

I mean, if a chicken is well fed and relaxed it doesn't make a lot of sense, poor innocent little birdies suffering from false allegations. Cute little sweeties.

Then one day I went out to the juvenile pen with my lawn chair and some leftover Lees fried chicken (why don't they have the chain more places, it's the very best).
"Look little ones, it's pork!" I fibbed to them.
I started to pick apart the... pork... when suddenly I was mobbed. Tearing and flinging bits of flesh as fast as I could to keep them off of me. Soon a vortex started, a ring-around-the-rosie with me in my chair at the center. 15 carnivores ran past, vacuumed up every speck of flesh I could fling at them, and began to eye my fingers with eyes of darkness as they whipped past me, round and round.
A scene from Jurassic Park with the raptor trainer flashed in my mind. That's when I knew... once the bucket ran out, I was next on the menu. I had to get out of that chair. So I flung what remained of the flesh into the air and leaped away as fast as I could.
Later, I saw them out there sitting in my lawn chair. Eyeing me.
Now I know. I know what they really are.

Oh my goodness, best laugh I have had all day

 

[Squawkers]

I find most non-chicken people are unaware that chickens are individuals with their own character and preferences. Dare I say personality?

They definitely have their own personality. It’s adorable

 

[Squawkers]

They remember things…..
When I wanted to sell a few chickens, they remembered that I took them. So my egg laying established flock that once would run to me, is now scared of me and runs away from me

Yes, chickens have the craziest memory. Once I had to spray my Orpington with a wound spray. 2 whole years later, I got the same bottle out and was reading to see if there was an expiration date. My Orpington was sitting at my feet. Then she looked up and saw that bottle. She literally vanished, screaming at the top of her lungs. It was hilarious

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

The only thing that seems crazy to me is their relation to T-Rex.

I mean, if a chicken is well fed and relaxed it doesn't make a lot of sense, poor innocent little birdies suffering from false allegations. Cute little sweeties.

Then one day I went out to the juvenile pen with my lawn chair and some leftover Lees fried chicken (why don't they have the chain more places, it's the very best).
"Look little ones, it's pork!" I fibbed to them.
I started to pick apart the... pork... when suddenly I was mobbed. Tearing and flinging bits of flesh as fast as I could to keep them off of me. Soon a vortex started, a ring-around-the-rosie with me in my chair at the center. 15 carnivores ran past, vacuumed up every speck of flesh I could fling at them, and began to eye my fingers with eyes of darkness as they whipped past me, round and round.
A scene from Jurassic Park with the raptor trainer flashed in my mind. That's when I knew... once the bucket ran out, I was next on the menu. I had to get out of that chair. So I flung what remained of the flesh into the air and leaped away as fast as I could.
Later, I saw them out there sitting in my lawn chair. Eyeing me.
Now I know. I know what they really are.

Yours are pretty tame. I used to have a flock of Rhode Island Reds, and they were at one point housed with a pair of Cornish Cross. Then they started eating my poor sweet broilers alive…….. the entire flock was culled, the broiler birds because of their half- healed necrotic flesh wounds, and the Rhode Islands for their aggressive behavior. I do have one bird left of that flock, a Leghorn named Francine, who I gave to my grandmother as a pet.

 

[Chicken_tiger_catt]

More often than not....
A rooster will not protect the flock fighting predators.

I knew one who did. A silkie named Gandalf. He would always look at humans with a strange glint in his eyes, not threatening, more of a challenge or question. We used to joke that he was saying “you shall not pass”. He died fighting off a fox that was trying to get in the old coop.