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Having worked on a farm, I can confirm that chickens are unsympathetic and occasionally cannibalistic, especially when large numbers live together. (We had one case where eggs were getting eaten, and discovered the culprit one day with yolk on its beak.)

If you converted them all to humans, they would be a bunch of jerks of breathtaking stupidity. The Biff Tannens of Back to the Future. I love that Sarah French is looking at how to mitigate the bullying.

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I'm not sure you can blame the chickens if you force them to live in an unnatural, stressful environment that they are not well-adapted to. As the article mentions, the primary reasons for "bullying" are stress, boredom, illness and overcrowding, all four of which are caused or controlled by the birds' human keepers.

It's interesting too that all 4 of those are present to some extent in our schools where much bullying takes place.

Quite so. Workplaces, as well.

Already mentioned, but prisons.

My family cared for 50-150 layers who were given free range during the day to go wherever they wanted and a safe coop at night with plenty of room for everybody with cool roosting spots.

Even in this configuration, the chickens were massive assholes to each other. Chicken rape is the worst too, the hens scream and run like crazy. Feathers fly.

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