Killer chickens!

[oldsparky]

Sometimes my young Blackmouth cur gets to be a handful if I don't go out back with her even if I stay in the barn she is more content chasing rabbits, lizards and butterflies if I am out there. Yesterday morning was like that I was trying to get things in the work truck to leave and she wanted to Hunt. I grabbed the Wolverine and headed out side. She spotted a cottontail and was off to the races she headed around the conex one direction so I headed the other direction around the barn. I never see the rabbit or her then she comes up behind me and gives me this look like it was me that messed up the hunt. Knowing I need to get to work I look in the chicken yard and there are doves scattered around the only birds I shoot are Pigeons but I got to get to work and know she would be occupied chewing on a dove for awhile. I call her over so we can wait for a clean shot on a dove. When a dove moved in the clear of chickens I let it have it with a head shot. When the dove flipped the chickens attacked the dove, feathers flying everywhere. Then a game of keep away started. Boy they tore that dove up. I had to wait for the excitement to dye a little to let my cur in the yard. I only have had to tell her once that she can’t eat chickens but with the excitement I thought she may get confused and grab a hen.I let her in she grabbed the bird and off to work I went. I am amused or scared? Every time I see the chickens get after something in their yard. I have seen them just tear a snake up.

 

[L.Leon]

Them killer chickens are modern day velociraptors... 

 

[sonny]

them cur are some smart dogs

 

[cea1960]

Sounds like a "B" movie. Killer Chickens in the Barnyard

 

[Penry]

I keep chickens around to keep the ticks and grasshoppers down. The eggs are nice, but they are mainly kept for ticks.

When I first got them I kept them in a small chicken tractor in the top section, and had one side enclosed with chicken wire so they could see out. My outdoor cats stalked then from day one and were really interested in the chicks. Once the chicks got big enough to let out (still pretty small overall) I let them out and they chased the outdoor cats around for a couple of weeks. Every time they saw a cat it was game on. It was pretty damn funny.

Love my chickens

 

[Bullfrog]

Here's one of my jungle fowl and some domestic layers eating the remains of a wild turkey.

Most of my chickens are junglefowl hybrids; the wild jungle pheasants that domestic chickens were bred from. Predators can't hardly catch them and they reproduce like rabbits on a free range setting. I haven't noticed the junglefowl being more or less predatory than any of the domestic chickens. They all will eat fresh meat when they have access to it.

Now these are something totally different:

These are oriental gamefowl. They're just chicks right now. They represent what may be a completely divergent line of chickens from a different wild ancestor than all of our other chickens. They have solid bones instead of hollow bones, long necks, and some bloodlines are mostly meat-eaters and can't otherwise live off of grain-based feeds. Highly aggressive to all sorts of animals (although usually human friendly). Very dinosaur-like. 

 

[Dingfelder]

Cool birds. I didn't know any of them had solid bones!

 

[airgunmike56]

Yea, the solid bones is new to me in birds,,, Never have i heard of it, But they do look more like the predator..

Cool

Mike 

 

[Bullfrog]

The solid bones are such an odd trait for galliforms and especially chickens, that’s one reason some believe that they represent a separate line of chickens that descend from the hypothetical wild species gallus giganteus as opposed to gallus gallus bankiva, the Javan red jungle fowl most naturalists presumed chickens were domesticated from. We now know most of the chickens come from gallus gallus murghi, the Indian red jungle fowl, but we still call those chickens “bankivoid.” The odd ones with the solid bones we call Malaynoid, Malay or oriental fowl. My personal hunch is that they are not closely related to the red jungle fowl and represent a separate species of chicken.