Homicidal Chicken

It was with great concern, perhaps ever consternation, that I viewed the news story with the headline: “Armed Rooster Kills California Man” on the MSNBC website today. I know very little about biology, and even less about agriculture, genetic engineering, or animal husbandry, but from what I had been lead to understand about chickens, their normal behaviors do not include using tools, wielding weapons, or attacking humans. I suppose it might be possible for a chicken to grasp a weapon in one of its claws, but if the weapon were a gun, how would the bird pull the trigger? If it raised its other claw to the trigger guard it would fall down. And if the weapon were a knife, the chicken would then have to chase down its victim while hopping on one foot, which doesn’t seem practical if the victim is a human (who could presumable run away). It would be different for a bird which can fly (it could simply take wing with the gun in one claw and fire it with the other), but a chicken would find it difficult to stay aloft long enough to get off a shot…

Of course, this assumes a standard-issue meat-animal type of chicken. If we are talking about an anthropomorphic chicken of the sort you’d expect to find in a Warner Brothers cartoon, that could be quite different. One can almost picture platoons of six-foot tall white roosters with arms instead of wings, all dressed in military uniforms and wielding rifles, as they seek vengeance for thousands of years of wrongs, real, imagined and animated. Their battle-cry could be “Why did the human cross the road?” or “Eat this, Colonel!” Of course, they’d probably spook at the sight of mashed potatoes or dumplings, and they’d get positively snippy at the mention of gravy…

Alternately, we might imagine that some mad scientist who also happens to be a practicing vegan had created a genetically-engineered Battle Chicken, designed specifically to take bloody revenge on those who question why a chicken would want to cross a road in the first place – or maintain those “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke sites. Given a sufficiently large number of such chickens – and enough chicken feed – an unscrupulous individual would have a real chance of taking over the world. Unless the United States and the other major military powers of the world were able to pool their efforts and develop an anti-chicken machine gun (preferably something with a rotisserie and barbeque function) it might be the end of the world as we know it…

Fortunately, upon reading the actual story much became clear. The chicken in question hadn’t armed itself; it was a fighting rooster and had been fitted with small razor blades attached to its feet in preparation for a cockfight. And the human victim hadn’t been shot, or had his throat slit, or even been chased down by a feathered minion of vengeance and cut to pieces; he was a participant in a cockfighting ring who had been slashed by one of the birds at a fighting event, and then avoided seeking medical attention in the hopes of also avoiding arrest and prosecution for his participation in an illegal sport. Far from being a flying nemesis, the chicken was just doing what millions of years of evolution had already programmed it to do when the fight was interrupted by the arrival of sheriff’s deputies and the bird had to vent its frustration on one of its hapless handlers…

So, other than comic relief, why am I calling your attention to such a story in a business blog? Because as comically misleading as this headline was, you can find far more outrageous things posted online almost any day of the week – and if you don’t read carefully, fact-check from multiple sources, and maintain a healthy skepticism, you’re likely to find yourself investing in a massive anti-poultry mortar for you back yard and a 12-gigawatt self-targeting laser on the roof to drive back the invading horde of battle chickens (or something equally silly) sooner or later…