I had a fair sized yard flock for a number of years. I have seen chickens kill and consume snakes, mice, voles, all manner of insect of course, lizards, other birds foolish enough to try to get to the chicken feed, and once one of their own chicks that just wouldn’t shut up. They definitely eat meat.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that in Japan, after Emperor Tenmu banned the eating of meat, certain animals were considered not to be meat. This did not include chickens, but it did include wild poultry. Also fish, eggs, probably others I’m not aware of/remembering.
I think this is related to why Japanese uses the same counter words for rabbits and birds. You can’t just say a number plus object in Japanese alone, because you need a counter word with it. So 2 bottles is “bottles 2 long things” and 4 pieces of paper is “paper 4 flat things”. Small animals are usually counted with the word “hiki”, so you’d say “salmon 5 hiki” or “dogs 2 hiki”, but birds use “wa” instead. I think rabbits are also wa so people could basically say “Uh, no we’re not eating meat, we’re just having some long eared furry birds.”
I heard once that chicken is considered vegetarian in some countries.
It’s true that chickens don’t eat meat.
Edit: This is not true.
Indeed! I remember a story of a wounded pidgeon falling into a chicken coop… Not much remained of said pidgeon, apparently.
TIL while checking my own dumb joke. I guess I just thought they ate seeds, corn, etc.
Joking aside—is there a better way I could’ve written down chicken meat being considered a vegetarian option, you think?
Cows eat grass and corn tho. Therefore cows are made of plants, therefore cows are vegetables. Checkmate carnivores.
Each kg of beef represents about 70kg of grass!
My chickens eat more mice than my cats.
Many animals we consider herbivores are opportunistic omnivores.
One video of a horse eating baby chickens was enough for me.
Chickens love eating bugs
Have you ever seen images like this?
haven’t you seen the hen dino out on a mouse? actually there are multiple videos of them killing mice and rats
I had a fair sized yard flock for a number of years. I have seen chickens kill and consume snakes, mice, voles, all manner of insect of course, lizards, other birds foolish enough to try to get to the chicken feed, and once one of their own chicks that just wouldn’t shut up. They definitely eat meat.
yeah, i saw a flock of chickens descend on a fullgrown chicken who just happened to be having a bad week. they’re evil creatures.
Pretty much every herbivore will eat meat every now and then.
In my country, old people consider fish and chicken vegetarian for some reason
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that in Japan, after Emperor Tenmu banned the eating of meat, certain animals were considered not to be meat. This did not include chickens, but it did include wild poultry. Also fish, eggs, probably others I’m not aware of/remembering.
I think this is related to why Japanese uses the same counter words for rabbits and birds. You can’t just say a number plus object in Japanese alone, because you need a counter word with it. So 2 bottles is “bottles 2 long things” and 4 pieces of paper is “paper 4 flat things”. Small animals are usually counted with the word “hiki”, so you’d say “salmon 5 hiki” or “dogs 2 hiki”, but birds use “wa” instead. I think rabbits are also wa so people could basically say “Uh, no we’re not eating meat, we’re just having some long eared furry birds.”