Chicken Lilli
has lost her girlfriend
Lilli's friend of just under two years had to be euthanized, and the chicken's owners set out to find her a new home and lots of companions.
A lonely single life absolutely does not work for a hen. Chickens are social animals and need contact with conspecifics. Humans cannot replace this contact. Therefore, chickens must not be kept alone. They need space to meet each other, to assess each other, to disagree, 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 respectfully. Nowadays, unfortunately, we reduce the usefulness of a chicken to egg laying and fattening. Mindfulness in the treatment of the chicken often does not have much need. Why should it, the majority of people are convinced that a chicken is "a stupid chicken".
Within a flock of hens there is a clear hierarchy. The food envy in the group is so great that the lowest-ranking hens would never get access to the food source if the feed trough were too short, and so not all animals would find room to pick grains. They would have to starve miserably.
There are the bitchy ones, the self-confident ones and the low-ranking ones
The behavior of each individual chicken is different. There are the bitchy ones that immediately peck away all conspecifics that want to approach the food source. Even in the yard they often behave aggressively towards their colleagues. Even the best care and much invested time, can not tame such hens.
There are hens that follow the human almost step by step. One does not have to be particularly anxious to be able to touch them. Often these are the lowest-ranking animals within a group.
Roosters are very caring bosses
Whether or not a rooster is kept in a group changes the role of the individual animals enormously. Now it is no longer the alpha hen that determines what goes on in the group. The rooster provides for order, if two hens quarrel. Roosters are very caring bosses
They would never eat a worm they found themselves. They call to their flock of hens, and leave it to the fastest one. In the absence of the rooster, the highest-ranking hen would never leave a worm to a conspecific without a fight. The cock does not let disputes arise at all. He intervenes when two hens begin to scuffle.
Lilli is a lady and diplomat
As if she knows that she is the "new one", Lilli behaves reserved and level-headed. In any case, she obviously enjoys not living alone in a garden and chicken coop.
Whether she has already forgotten her friend, we can only guess. Chickens can remember significant events for up to four weeks. Lilly is also very distracted among all the Aiderbichler chickens, and is already clucking profusely with her new friends.
When chickens are constantly moving, pecking, scratching, taking a dust bath, surrounded by many conspecifics, eating and drinking, they do not cluck alarmingly, they are happy in their chicken kingdom.
