Far more dangerous than ignorance is certainty.

I saw ‘em over there in the corner of the coop, gathered together, clucking and crowing with increasing intensity. These chickens were clearly in a foul mood. Incensed!

Luckily, I had just downloaded the newest version of Google Translate and lo and behold, it had been upgraded to include certain animal languages, including Chickenese. So just like that, I could actually understand these chickens! Of course, I decided to eavesdrop. What would you do?

The chickens were discussing a long running insult that humans had associated with them. They didn't like it, and wondered if there was anything at all they could do about it.

The particular insult which was getting in their craw that day was the term, “playing chicken”. For some reason, humans thought that chickens often charged at one another just to see which of them would “chicken out” first. That second term was another insult, but they only had the energy to deal with one insult at a time, so they chose to just deal with the more confusing of the two: “playing chicken”.

That's not all. Not only do chickens talk, they can also read! You know those old newspapers humans spread on the bottoms of the laying nests to catch “whatever”? Yes, they serve that purpose (quite well) but they are also an important source of reading material for the coop. Just as all y’all thought no human could ever understand chicken talk, all y'all also probably thought chickens couldn't read. You humans are so vain—and wrong more than half of the time, by the coop's estimation.

Humans can see that chickens are not that taxed with stuff to do each day. It's true, they have a lot of time on their hands, er, chicken feet. This is why they are voracious readers, and if you were to suddenly find yourself understanding chicken talk one day, you would immediately recognize that these birds are very up to date on the news of the world. On this particular day they were discussing all of it, and it was clear that humans have a very bad habit of doing stupid stuff that looks remarkably like the exact thing humans accuse chickens of…playing chicken.

One extraordinarily vocal rooster (yes, that same one who wakes the hell out of everyone at the farm starting at 4 a.m.) brought up this article he’d just read about the ten worst vehicles humans can buy if they want to resell them after a few years.

Turns out seven of the ten are giant pickups, which for whatever reason humans want to resell after only three to four years, and which are worth an average of $7k less than what these same humans owe on said vehicles. And these vehicles get about half the mileage per gallon as other cars, which have better resale value and last longer. So these humans are paying several thousand dollars more for gas over the ownership life of their vehicles, and then selling them at a loss for an amount that does not even cover the debt on the vehicle. This rooster crowed, “looks like humans are playing, ahummm…. ‘Chicken’ with their own finances!” All of the other chickens in the coop clucked uproariously at this.

Another chicken, a very large hen who knew a thing or two about laying very large eggs, laid this one on everyone. “What about this Iran war?”

“Since when is taking pot shots at each other, declaring victory, finding their way to a so-called ‘negotiating table’, having another lovers’ spat, sulking away, hurling insults at one another and then resuming their pot shooting, called a real war? Looks to me like those folks are, to use that DEROGATORY term we all hate, ‘playing chicken’. It's clear each side thinks the other will swerve away in the face of enough threatening gestures. Just how did us chickens become associated with such irrational behavior?”

Just then, a much younger hen craned her neck to add emphasis to what she was about to say. Several of the roosters "of age" took excited note of this gesture, murmuring under their beaks, "...what a hot young chick!".

The young hen exclaimed, "What about those data centers being built all over the country in places that don't have enough power or water? It's like those hyper-scalers are just daring local folks to complain to their community leaders that water and power might be limited and they don't want to have a collision with the new folks in town who have laid dibs on them too. Looks to me like the people and the hyper-scalers are also playing a game of ‘chicken’ with each other. And this just makes the scales on the back of my neck pop out. Look at them, y'all! Let me crane my neck a bit more so you can see. I am upset, dammit, and they add insult to injury by defaming our good chicken name in the process!” Murmurs in the coop corner increased, a combination of “She's right!” and “My, what a hot young chick”.

Amazed and confused, I listened to all of this intently. In general, I was in agreement with what the coop had said. However, unfortunately for me, this ability to understand chicken talk would last only a few minutes because the farmer who owned the coop had not yet set up wifi access. (Why would he? Chickens don't need internet access, do they?) So I lost my signal and Google Translate quit working properly, but I’d had it long enough to get the gist of their discussion.

The last words I heard, spoken in most elegant chickenese by the grand rooster were, “Seems to me the proper term for two parties hurling themselves aimlessly at each other, or perhaps even at themselves, should be ‘playing human’.

You know what playing human looks like? It's when their egos rush headlong in the direction of their common sense, yelling ‘Get out of my way you damn fool! I'm coming through like it or not!’. Humans seem to play with either too much certainty that they will prevail, or too much ignorance that their road to glory could more likely be the road to hell. Or maybe even an unhealthy combination of both too much certainty and too much ignorance, mixed in with a dollop of greed and selfishness.”

“How could this pertain to chickens? Everyone knows we have no ego, we always let our common sense, as well as the collective wisdom of our coop community prevail!” continued the grand rooster, as he puffed out his feathery chest and promptly stole and consumed the scrumptious cricket that the hot young chick had captured for her snack after delivering her excellent speech about the data centers.

She thought about making a violent charge at him in the hope that he would give her cricket back. But then she thought better of it, deciding that she had no appetite for “playing human”.

*Feature Photo by Fawaz Onakoya

The Chickens Are Incensed

The chickens were discussing a long running insult that humans had associated with them. They didn't like it, and wondered if there was anything at all they could do about it.

One extraordinarily vocal rooster (yes, that same one who wakes the hell out of everyone at the farm starting at 4 a.m.) brought up this article he’d just read about the ten worst vehicles humans can buy if they want to resell them after a few years.

Another chicken, a very large hen who knew a thing or two about laying very large eggs, laid this one on everyone. “What about this Iran war?”

The last words I heard, spoken in most elegant chickenese by the grand rooster were, “Seems to me the proper term for two parties hurling themselves aimlessly at each other, or perhaps even at themselves, should be ‘playing human’.