Chicken Lilli
has lost her girlfriend
Lilli, who is almost two years old, had to be put down, and the chicken’s owners set out to find her a new home and lots of mates.
A lonely, solitary life does not work at all for a hen. Hens are social animals and need contact with conspecifics. Humans cannot replace this contact. Chickens must therefore not be kept alone. They need space to meet each other, to assess each other, to get to know each other, to look for food together or to take a dust bath. Lilli’s owners have done well.
Chickens have character and make friends
Chickens are as smart as mammals and have the right to be treated with respect. Nowadays, we unfortunately reduce the usefulness of a chicken to laying eggs and fattening. Mindfulness in dealing with chickens is often not very necessary. And why should we? The majority of people are convinced that a chicken is “a stupid chicken”.
There is a clear hierarchy within a flock of chickens. Food envy in the group is so great that the lowest-ranking hens would never have access to the food source if the feeding trough were too short, meaning that not all the birds would have room to peck at the grains. They would simply starve to death.There are the bitchy ones, the confident ones and the lowly ones
The behaviour of each individual chicken is different. There are the bitchy ones, who immediately peck away any conspecifics who try to approach the food source. They also often behave aggressively towards their mates in the yard. Even the best care and a lot of time invested cannot tame such hens.There are hens that follow humans around almost step by step. You don’t have to make any special effort to be able to touch them. These are often the lowest-ranking animals within a group.
Roosters are very caring bosses
Whether a tap is held in the group or not, changes the role of the individual animals enorm. Now it is no longer the alpha hen that determines what happens in the group. Theroosterkeepsorder when two hens are fighting. Roosters are very caring bosses
They would never eat a worm they have found themselves. They call their flock of chickens,and leave it to the fastest. In the absence of the rooster, the highest-ranking hen would never leave a worm to a conspecific without a fight. The cockerel does not even allow disputes to arise. He intervenes when two hens start to scuffle.
Lilli is a lady and a diplomat
As if she knew that she was the “new girl”, Lilli behaves cautiously and calmly. In any case, she obviously enjoys not living alone in a garden and a chicken coop.We can only guess whether she has already forgotten her friend. Chickens can remember important events for up to four weeks. Lilly is also very distracted among all the Aiderbichler chickens and is already clucking with her new friends.
When chickens are constantly moving around, pecking, scratching, taking a dust bath, surrounded by lots of other chickens, eating and drinking, and not clucking alarmingly, they are happy in their hen kingdom.
