A farmyard in Korea got all fowled up when a hen decided to be nanny to a litter of kittens. This hen raised the kittens’ mother–who was still around, but didn’t mind her mommy chicken helping with the kits.
It got complicated; but you’ll see the farmer finally found the solution.
Here’s a chicken raising her second generation of… cats! Yes, these three kittens are the offspring of a mother cat who was adopted by this same chicken. The hen’s daughter helps out, but she won’t allow any other chickens into the coop while she’s nestling the kittens.
Domestication does some wonderful things with animals.
This is crazy–chickens that cuddle with you as if they were dogs or cats. (Rats cuddle, too, BTW.) How do you eat them, once they’ve nestled in your lap, or come a-running when you called? It’d be like eating a member of your family.
Ai-ya! I just had chicken thighs for supper and now I feel guilty! I mean, really–the bird comes when he’s called, and he hops up onto your lap… and you’re gonna eat him? Uh-uh, no way, kimosabe. I probably shouldn’t even watch these cozy chicken videos.
There’s something about the way chickens run that just gives me the giggles–can’t help it. Even funnier, when they chase people and dogs. Yes–dogs, too. No foe is too formidable for a chicken with her dander up. And ghat goes for roosters, too.
Chicken wants to sleep in the cat’s bed. So does the cat. Watch them methodically annoy each other until they both wind up without a bed. (Gee, there should be a lesson in that somewhere, shouldn’t there?)
(Where did my sharing buttons go?)
Who knew a chicken could learn to play the piano? If you think it must’ve been easy, try it yourself–without using your hands. Imagine what she could do if she had hands instead of wings. Or if you had wings instead of hands.
This is not a grown-up cat, but these three baby chicks don’t know that: they think she’ll do as a foster mother. Look at them cuddle up with her, and fall asleep… and she doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe she’s practicing motherhood for future kittens.
“Mother hen” is no figure of speech: this hen really is acting as a mother to three kittens. It’d never happen in the wild, but once you domesticate animals, all bets are off.
And you thought the story of Romulus and Remus was a fairy tale…
Hens shelter their chicks under their wings; even so, God shelters us, the Bible teaches. The lesson is found in Psalm 91, and repeated by Our Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 23.
I guess I’ve seen too many videos: the more I see of chickens, and learn about them, the more I admire them. I could never raise them so I could eat them. I’ll be the ninny whose living room is overrun with chickens.