Cock a Doodle What?????????

For those of you that don't know, I live on a farm. We garden and raise chickens for eggs. We have 40 plus chickens which includes two roosters; Clyde and Whitey. Clyde is a dick but Whitey keeps him in shape by running him multiple times around the yard.

We have two hens that are lame. They can't walk and stay in the larger of the two coups that we have. They have gotten to the point where they let me pet them every day as well as my 3 year old son who thinks they are "cute". Well one day this past weekend, my son was bouncing off the walls so I suggested we go outside and run off all the energy. Paw-paw was in the chicken yard walking fast. That's strange for him as his back is all messed up. Then he left the yard and slammed the gate to the yard shut. I came over to my Sis and asked what was up which my father in law stormed past and yelled "Keep him away from here!" I looked at Sis and she told me something happened to one of the chickens but she didn't know what.

Next thing I know, here comes Dad holding a limp chicken by the legs upside down. I hurried over to my son and put him on the lawn mower so that he would be distracted. I then went over to find out what had happened. Apparently one of the Rhode Island Red hens went into the coupe and started flogging and pecking the two lame chickens. My father in law kicked her out of the coupe and turned to leave when she re-entered the coupe and did it again. Dad took the hen and cut off her air supply just long enough for her to pass out. He then took her out of the barn and hog tied her legs together and threw her back into the coupe so that she could see what it was like to be crippled like the other two chickens.

I went that evening to put the chickens up and the one that was hog tied was panting and laying on the floor but she was okay. The other chickens just walked on top of her like she wasn't even there. I told my other half what had happened and he told me this:

"If you told that story to anyone in the county or in the city, they'd call PETA and scream animal cruelty, but if you ask any farmer around here, they would tell ya that chicken is lucky to be alive!"