July 26, 2004

"A man in Suva, Fiji, is being taught to act human after being raised as a chicken."
Gwuh?
posted by forksclovetofu 20 years ago
  • Good grief. The poor man.
  • Dear Forks, is the term Gwuh something left over from your childhood with ... Other Fowl?
  • Mowgli stories, yes. Tarzan tales, yes. But cooped up the way this poor fellow's been -- NOOOO!
  • Buh?
  • Bees, he was just trying to scratch out a living.
  • Eggs-ackly WRONG! Not like this!
  • Monkeyfilter: teaching people to act monkeyish after being raised human.
  • I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for thier sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth. --Walt Whitman
  • All of a sudden, the old joke about needing the eggs just isn't as funny. At least he has a chance at a somewhat normal life now.
  • I have a pet hen. It's quite intelligent! All of those old stories about hens being stupid are wrong! They are at least as intelligent as retarded goats. They do smell bad, however.
  • Hehe, the best (or most tasteless) part of this is the targeted advertising banner (at time of this posting). Jewel-Osco is apparently having their "Cheep" Chicken Monday special. Only $5.99!
  • Nostril, does your hen live in the house?
  • pivo, i honestly didn't catch that ad until you said something. Oh lord. I laughed and I laughed and then I laughed some more.
  • Beeswacky, old chum, it insists on coming inside, at least into the laundry, at night. During the day it patrols the garden & eats bugs. If it had its druthers, it would like to wander around the rest of the house; but I don't encourage that. Sometimes I let it into the kitchen where it picks things off the floor like crumbs, & steals cat food from the bowl (the cat is none too cheerful about this). Thankfully, for some reason, it doesn't do huge shits inside, but rare & dry ones which don't even smell much. The first crap of the morning, however, is always a massive stinky wet one, which I am grateful it holds til it is outside, then squat & BLOOOSH. The laundry is papered, but it really doesn't make too much of a mess & I exagerate the smell.. but to sniff the bird is not that great. You put 10 hens together tho, & the stench is pretty bad, I admit. It will yell & complain if outside at night, even in the coop I made for it. In fact, it will abort or attack its own eggs in the early morn, in protest. In the laundry, in its wee box, no problem. The eggs are great, too, but it rarely lays now. The story of how I got this hen, and how it sought asylum with me, is too long & completely unbelievable to go into here, but suffice it to say that it crossed a main road. Not once, but 3 times. It crossed the friggin' road. I kid thee not.
  • Well, Nostril, I salute you. Not every person is willing to put up with the mess a bird makes -- and they all do, to one degree or another. She sounds far brighter than I would have assumed a hen to be. I gather, reading between the lines, that you've spent quite a bit of time with her for her to be so well-socialized. And I'm very much impressed, no kidding, both by you and by her.
  • Well, I have to admit, she came to me pretty well humanised to begin with, but 'tis a strange story nevertheless. I appreciate the company of animals. Maybe that's part of it. But I had not really ever considered chickens to be very smart - probably as an excuse so that I could continue to eat their flesh without concern. I have discovered that they are smarter than one expects. This makes cruelty to chickens in the food industry rather worse, since these are also creatures capable of emotion, interraction, a reasonable amount of response to other beings. /shrug I don't really know how to figure that one out. I wouldn't force anyone to be a vegetarian, I'm not a full vegie myself. There must be a less awful way of 'harvesting' these creatures, though. It has always bothered me. It's a rather amusing little bird, though, gives me a laugh. No different to having a parrot that wanders around ... of course, a parrot is an einstein compared to a chook. But the eggs don't taste as good! :D /bow
  • Uncle Nostril, thanks for sharing the story of your Chookie. I watched this documentary last year, and it completely changed my views on poultry. Remarkable critters. When I was 10 my family spent a few weeks in a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico. We stayed in a little hotel owned by a nice lady who kept a mongrel bird herd of several chickens and a rooster. During the day they hung out on the beach placidly pecking at bits of seaweed, bugs and sand, and at night they roosted in a small tree close to the high-tide line. They made wonderful noises, like enormous brightly-colored doves coughing. What a great way to live, for chickens, humans or otherwise.
  • this fascinating site is maintained by a guy who has to be the world's top expert on feral children.
  • If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck... Oh never mind
  • You know, I had pretty much decided that I didn't want kids... ...until reading this story.
  • So Nostrildamus why did the chicken cross the road? You and you alone hold the answer to this immortal question. All hail Nostril great oracle of chickendom.
  • The story of how I got this hen, and how it sought asylum with me, is too long & completely unbelievable .... Dammit, Nostril, don't be a tease. Make me believe.
  • I, too, would really delight in hearing more about the asylum-seeking chook. When ye have time, Nostril.
  • Alright, let's keep it in the sidebar until we hear the story: what's up with the chicken, Nostril?
  • Nostril, chicken! Nostril, chicken! Nostril, chicken! *ad infinitum, accompanied by banging of steel cups* But on a more sombre note: Chicken abuse. More of this on Google News Search. I saw the video, and it was horrifying. You wouldn't do that to turnips, much less living creatures. Bastards.
  • *starts slow handclap*
  • I tried typing it out but it wouldn't let me post it. I'll do so in a few hours. I'll try to make it interesting, but no guarantees that it is. Remember, I'm somewhat weird and find small animals and their normal behaviour endlessly interesting. And yeah, Alnedra, I read about that chicken abuse thing, and there is no way that I can watch the video. Animal abuse makes me furiously mad and also depressed.
  • There's a max length to comments, although I'm not sure what it is. Try cutting it into bits like f8x does.
  • Yeah, what Wolof said. I'm not sure what the character limit is but a simple way to find out is pick one of f8x's long ones, copy-paste into MS Word and do a character count.
  • My editor says I'm too prolix anyway.
  • Nostril: We want the chicken scoop in ALL its noodle-y goodness.
  • I sometimes think I'd rather crow and be a rooster than to roost and be a crow. But I dunno. A rooster he can roost also, which don't seem fair when crows can't crow. Which may help some. Still I dunno. Crows should be glad of one thing, though; nobody thinks of eating crow, while roosters they are good enough for anyone unless they're tough. There's lots of tough old roosters though and anyway a crow can't crow, so mebbe roosters stand more show. It looks that way. But I dunno. -- Anonymous
  • Come on, Nostril, your public awaits the chookie story.
  • How the hell did I not make a joke in this thread first time round?