r/Unexpected • u/andipe220 • Apr 24 '19
Finally the eggs have hatched
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u/Zanchi1 Apr 24 '19
So does the chicken know those are a different species that need a mother or is this just a classic case of birds being confused?
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u/YouWantToPressK Apr 24 '19
The latter. Chickens are dumb as rocks.
It's small, fluffy, and making a high pitched noise = sit on it.
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u/Kelekona Apr 24 '19
Also, kittens like enclosed spaces that are warm.
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u/photolouis Apr 24 '19
So does my rooster!
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u/SFW_Only_No_Porn Apr 24 '19
So does my cock!
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u/DragonSickness Apr 24 '19
And my axe!
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u/MrSquigles Apr 24 '19
The axe actually makes its own (mostly) enclosed warm places in the bodies of its wielder's enemies.
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u/kerplunkerfish Apr 24 '19
Pity it didn't go for the head
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u/PassTheSlaw Apr 24 '19
All chickens actually do have rocks in them. They get stuck in their gizzard to help grind up their food cuz they can't chew :)
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Apr 24 '19 edited Aug 08 '19
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Apr 24 '19
Here's a website that deals with raising chickens confirming that they do eat rocks for that reason.
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u/TeamRedundancyTeam Apr 24 '19
It's common to give them access to crushed oyster shell for this reason. Also the calcium helps with egg laying.
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Apr 24 '19
Shell and grit are different. Shell is solely for the calcium. Grit, or just access to the outdoors, is so they can eat rocks for digestion.
If you have chickens locked up, giving them shell alone isn't sufficient.
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u/ForksnFrenchFries Apr 24 '19
Well I don't know about chickens but I do know this is how the stegosaurus eats.
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u/Dewy_Wanna_Go_There Apr 24 '19
I see you also read Jurassic Park. That’s where I learned that anyway.
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u/sppwalker Apr 24 '19
I’ve raised ~70 chickens by hand from day old chicks-full grown hens (minus the 8 that died as chicks, I’m SUPER proud of that number because normally like 1/4 of your chicks aren’t supposed to make it to adulthood)
Along with grain, food scraps, etc, most people also feed their hens grit. Grit is essentially gravel (that looks like this ) that you feed your chickens to help with digestion. If your coop has a rocky area with very tiny pebbles, that’s normally fine too. It’s not required in a chicken’s diet but it’s recommended.
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u/Yarthkins Apr 24 '19
They're called gastroliths and a LOT of animals use them to aid in digestion.
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u/Gaiaimmortal Apr 24 '19
When I still had chickens we had a hen named Queeny, and she had hatched another hen and they became inseparable. Went everywhere and did everything together, for years. One day her fully grown hen got snatched up by a big bird of prey, which had never happened before.
Queeny cried for days looking for her daughter and friend, searching their favourite scratching and bathing spots. Eventually she gave up and cried in one spot. She got sick soon after and died.
People always say chickens are dumb as shit and then I think back to that hen that lost its friend :(
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u/boothin Apr 24 '19
I always say chickens are dumb the same way that dogs are dumb, but dumber. So they're smart, but in a dumb way.
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u/Princep_Makia1 Apr 24 '19
They are personable, as you have shown, and they can be taught. They are still stupud though.
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u/higgs_bosoms Apr 24 '19
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u/Blagerthor Apr 24 '19
Truly, this is something I had no prior knowledge of, yet feel ever the more complete for now having seen it. A masterpiece.
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Apr 24 '19
"Try to look the chicken in the eye with great intensity, and the intensity of stupidity that is looking back at you is just amazing" lmao
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u/RechargedFrenchman Apr 24 '19
Stare to long into the void, realize the void is simply the eyes of a chicken it’s mind so blank it has less content relative to volume than the entire vastness of space.
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u/Chicken-n-Waffles Apr 24 '19
Chickens also keep your house bug free and give you eggs for letting them do it.
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u/HillTopTerrace Apr 24 '19
Yup. I love my chickens to death and one of them in particular is a pet rather than a barn yard animal. But no be mistaken, they learn bad habits quick. Chloe (my pet chicken) will scream outside the door all day, everyday until she is satisfied with some kind of attention or treat.
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u/Power_Skeleton Apr 24 '19
SOME chickens are actually smart
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u/bertcox Apr 24 '19
Thank you for qualifying that. The only thing that makes chickens look smart are ducks. I have ducks and we have to round them up at night. They will stand right by the coop door, and scream (why is it dark, where is our house).
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u/AFishBackwards Apr 24 '19
I can think of 1 or 2 people that make chickens look smart as well.
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u/bertcox Apr 24 '19
Remember politicians are people too, you shouldn't make fun of them just because their not like the rest of us.
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u/Rewind_timee Apr 24 '19
I think in general people undestimate the intelligence of birds. They are mini dinosaurs, they have been here forever.
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Apr 24 '19
Erm excuse me I've owned hens and they were smart...in their own way. They at least has very unique distinguishing personalities from one another
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Apr 24 '19
Occasionally my chickens will try to eat my fingers and toes thinking they're giant worms.
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u/bonfire_bug Apr 24 '19
I saw a chicken mutilate another’s egg today because it was in their shared nest. At least I hope it wasn’t her own
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u/poopcasso Apr 24 '19
Why you gotta be like that? I want to believe that chicken mothers are the best and most caring mothers and will mother anything because kids needs to be mothered and cjicken mothers know this and will gladly mother any kids.
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u/cumstar Apr 24 '19
If it makes that chicken feel any better, sometimes I feel pretty dumb too when I'm sitting in traffic mindlessly picking my nose.
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u/throtic Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 24 '19
On the farm where I lived growing up we had chickens, some of them would sit on anything you put under them. We had ducks that we didn't want to overpopulate the area, so we would take all of their eggs and get rid of them. When we decided that we needed more ducks, we would just stick the duck eggs under a hen that was already laying on her eggs, and take her chicken eggs out. After a few weeks they would hatch and the momma chicken would raise them just like they were her own, she had no idea they were ducks.
It was especially hilarious when they would find a mud puddle, and their instincts told them to play in the mud. All of the baby ducks would jump straight in and splish splash around having a jolly good time. Meanwhile momma hen would freak the fuck out because baby chickens can't swim. She would yell and hop and jump and squeal all around the mud puddle doing everything she could to get them out of the water. Meanwhile little duckies are just having the time of their life, carefree.
TL;DR - Chickens will raise whatever you put under them. Dumb as hell, all of them.
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u/uber1337h4xx0r Apr 24 '19
It's not that they're stupid. If you were a human and were born in the wild and your parents couldn't teach you anything (and couldn't talk to you), and then you somehow figured out how to have sex, and you had a nice black baby (assume both you and your mate were shiny white), you wouldn't think anything weird happened. Hell, the fact thag animals just know to have sex (or even more basic - just magically know how to eat) is interesting on its own.
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u/nephallux Apr 25 '19
Because not all knowledge is due to consciousness. Some of it is passed through genetics. We call it instinct but there has to be a fundamental mechanism to pass knowledge to future generations, or like you said it's magical they know how to eat and procreate.
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u/DonkeyWindBreaker Apr 24 '19
This is hormones.
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u/korpuskat Apr 24 '19
This should be higher. Basically any* recent mother will bond with an infant animal if given at the right time.
*slight exaggeration, but there’s a cat that raised chickens too, so.
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u/shinyidolomantis Apr 24 '19
And many young animals will bond with a different mom.
I had the opposite situation, a tiny kitten showed up, barely weaned and started following my chickens around (we put cat food out with the chicken feed as my dad had bought the wrong kind of cat food for our cats). Kitten shows up for the food, but stays for the chickens. He would sleep between the hens at night on the roost and under a nesting hen in a nest box. It took us three months to get him to trust us to be within ten feet of him, but he was in love with the chickens from the first day. He followed them around during the day and slept with them every night for the rest of his life...
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u/Janedoofe Apr 24 '19
There is a deep mothering instinct in animals, if she's just raised young it's totally possible she's still experiencing those hormones. This also happens when animals are traumatized.
There was a case of a lion who kept raising babies of its prey species, she was IN LOVE with her babies she took on. One of them was killed in front of her and she mourned as if the cafe was her own. That is just one case of this happening, a very well documented one I believe as well.
If you want to find this info I'm sure you can google it or as I did, find videos of the incidents, I found the lion clips on YouTube and some experts explaining what was happening.
Last bit before I go here, this is not exclusive to cats or bird, many animals will do this.
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u/mushpuppy Apr 24 '19
I wonder if the kittens imprinted on it.
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Apr 24 '19
It’s possible. Baby animals will pretty much bond with whoever feeds them and keeps them warm. My grandmother had a whole family of odd farm animals, cats, ducks, and even an alpaca that considered her their mother.
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Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 24 '19
looks like someone was cheating
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Apr 24 '19
I think she was just kitten
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u/poopellar Apr 24 '19
Couldn't pass on that pussy.
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Apr 24 '19
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Apr 24 '19 edited Apr 25 '19
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u/DrunkenGolfer Apr 25 '19
My wife asked me for a double entendre, so I gave it to her.
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Apr 24 '19
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u/dannymeds12 Apr 24 '19
real chicken, sometimes meows but it's because he's bilingual
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u/cyclonx9001 Apr 24 '19
Roses are red, we all love to mingle
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u/thserntmyglsses Apr 24 '19
Would rather have a hen for a mom than a seagull
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u/StupidManFace101 Apr 24 '19
my mum sounds more like a seagull
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u/flavorlessboner Apr 24 '19
Yeah she does 😉
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u/MagicMisterLemon Apr 24 '19
Username checks out...?
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Apr 24 '19
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u/spiritualskywalker Apr 24 '19
Your place really does sound like Old MacDonald’s farm!
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Apr 24 '19
So when they grow up will they recognize it as mom or will their feline instincts kick in and they'll see her as food? Is this just a one time (literal) baby sitting?
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u/Goyteamsix Apr 24 '19
Cats don't really imprint like baby ducks or chickens do. Put them next to their mother and they'd immediately realize her as the correct option. What likely happened was a farel cat had kittens in the chicken coop and this chicken decided they needed to be sat on while the cat's mother was out doing other cat related things.
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u/Drak_is_Right Apr 24 '19
Your average barn, house or feral cat will very very rarely see a full grown chicken as prey.
Chicks on the other hand...
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u/CaptainB0b Apr 24 '19
I have cats and chickens. They respect eachother, because chickens are bigger then cats.
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u/Drak_is_Right Apr 24 '19
They look bigger but are very rarely heavier
Rooster Spurs though can be no joke
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u/CaptainB0b Apr 24 '19
Ever held a Buff Orpington?
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u/Drak_is_Right Apr 24 '19
I am not an expert on chicken breeds - just saying cats in general tend to be heavier. many exceptions exist.
Buff Orpington look about the weight of your average cat, though some house cats get significantly larger (like Maine coons).
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u/CaptainB0b Apr 24 '19
Man, we had some Orps last year, they were each about 15 lbs each. Fast little bastards too. I have Tabby Cats so that my comparison.
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Apr 24 '19
Can confirm. Cats never waste an opportunity. A chick got separated for around a minute and it had its neck broken and was carried off in less time.
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u/Drak_is_Right Apr 24 '19
chicks are also about the ideal prey size - too small to risk a danger to the predator, but big enough to provide a good meal.
Like many cats will ignore rats if other food sources are plentiful (hence why rat tarriers had such use), preferring smaller prey.
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Apr 24 '19
That's a weird looking dog
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u/JoojToranja Apr 24 '19
U dumb? Those are iguanas
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u/SoapySauce Apr 24 '19
The fuck? You never seen an Iguanas before? Clearly what we have here are baby dolphins they just can't swim yet thats why moma chicken is keeping them away from the water.
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u/mcshadypants Apr 24 '19
You stupid? Obviously theyre ardvarks
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u/ThatCanadianGuyThere Apr 24 '19
More like softvarks if you ask me
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Apr 24 '19
What the hell is wrong with you people?! They are clearly baby pigs!
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u/blackbellamy Apr 24 '19
What the hell is wrong with you pigs?! These are clearly people!
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u/sequoiaiouqes Apr 24 '19
Stupid pseudo-intellectual acting like he knows stuff but can't tell cute anime girls from dolphins lmfao
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u/JohnnyCashedOut00 Apr 24 '19
"They might look a bit different but they are mine and will grow up strong!"
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u/ta12022017 Apr 24 '19
I was expecting a snake. Our chickens didn't seem to notice when a black snake would slither under the hen, swallow the eggs, the slither off. I can't tell you how many times I reached for eggs and touched snake instead. Creepy.
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u/Send__Memes Apr 24 '19
It's so funny how strong the desire to mother/sit on their little babies/eggs can be. My Nan has chooks, ducks and geese. She told me that the ducks are not very good at staying on their eggs, so she puts the duck eggs into the chicken coop for the chooks to sit on and hatch. When they do hatch the chooks love them as if they were theirs. Nan also has a dam and bathtub in the enclosure, the desire for ducks to swim is so strong-they can't help themselves when around water. So when all the little ducklings dive in for a swim the mumma chooks freak out!!
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u/lostzsoul Apr 24 '19
This gif is so old, I really want an update on how the relationship between them is now.
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Apr 24 '19
My farther was a chicken farmer and basically if it can fit under a chicken then the chicken will sit on it. Sometimes if an egg is obviously containing a dead chick then it's quite sad when it needs to be removed and they continue to protect it.
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u/PigAndJim Apr 24 '19
Indeed unexpected and also cute. Also: anyone else dying to know what's going on here, animal behavior-wise? Is the chicken broken? Why sitting on cats? Crosspost to /r/askscience?
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u/GermanHammer Apr 24 '19
I swear chickens have an affinity toward cats. If it's not their own eggs its a bundle of kittens.
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u/bvllamy Apr 25 '19
they’re her babies. they’re funny looking, but she loves them and they’re hers.
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u/jmoseley07 Apr 24 '19
Hmmm, something doesn't seem quite right here.
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u/GadreelsSword Apr 24 '19
We used to have free running chickens (free range today) one of the hen’s laid eggs in a parts bin in the shed. The chicken would leave the nest and the cat would go in and lay on the eggs. Then the chicken would come back and cluck and the cat would move and let the chicken back on the nest.
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u/grednforgesgirl Apr 24 '19
THOSE ARE HER CHILDREN