I mention from time to time the aggressive chickens that used to live at the family farm and how it was generally the youngest of the cousins, once he or she was five or so, who would be in charge of them. The chickens were psychotic, of course. I still have small scars on my forearms from their pecking. I remember being thankful for younger cousins to whom I could surrender the duty.
Usually, the response to these memories from the
Shemanese (Connecticut Caucasians) is to inform me that the chickens
they had as children were never that way, that they always had good relations with them, etc.
(I miss the tribe and The Big Flat, sometimes. Tribal people are rarely know-it-alls. It's not considered a virtue.)
Of course, the chickens they're describing tend to be australopes or brahmas, who are docile fowl, and not RIR, leghorns, or, especially, NHR, that have a different and lower regard towards humans, cattle, and other chickens. They're positively prehistoric. One can never explain to a shemanese that Indian chickens on the frontier who live in flocks of hundreds have a different attitude than the handful of egg-layers that are kept basically as family pets.
Which is why I read this brief article with interest:
The Surprising Lessons My Family Learned from Raising Chickens
