Holding a chicken.

There are a few things about holding a chicken that I want to address in this weblog post. These are by no means pointers - there are lots of places online where you can get more pointers on chickens than you could ever hope to put to practical use (unless you were a chicken scientist, in which case the more information the better, I suppose) - these are just observations.

Someone who has never held a chicken before, and is facing the opportunity, might be pretty excited about it, because for many people a chicken is something that you know is out there making the eggs you buy at the store, but is part of a simpler, rustic world far removed from our own. Of course, for most people on Earth, chickens are pest-pets who exist as a tangible part of daily life to make food and to be food. But the following set of thoughts is more pertinent to the ideologue who looks forward to holding a chicken as a way to grasp another life far past, a time when people were called folks and the only thing to fear was fear itself and twisters. Here is the truth about holding a chicken, darling ideologue:

- First of all, many chickens don't want to be held. In fact, many of them don't want hands laid on them at all. The ones who are okay with it usually do this cowering, submissive crouch as you reach for them, giving the impression that you can hold them, but it's going to make them terribly uncomfortable.

- If you manage to wrangle yourself a chicken who does not want to be held, you're in for a lot of frantic wing-flapping right in your face as she struggles to get free, and if you've ever heard any horror stories about the public health implications of pigeons, it will be hard not to imagine millions of lice zooming in every direction as the bird you're presently grappling with thrashes in your arms. Not that chickens commonly have lice (maybe they do, I don't know), but that image will probably be present in your mind. Especially after reading this.

- If you are lucky enough to have seized (or been handed) a bird who allows you to hold her, then what? There's not very much you can do with a chicken. I mean, it's not like you're holding a baby. So then you're just standing there holding a chicken.

So there you go. Food for thought.