One of our chickens died yesterday, and I had the opportunity to see some interesting behavior from the rest of the flock. Normally they are pretty relaxed around us, especially when we are putting down water and feed. But when I picked up the dead bird, the others starting making warning clucks and ran to the other side of the pen. I must have appeared like an attacking predator to them. This raised my opinion of their character a bit. Maybe this breed (Barred Rock) is superior to other chickens in some way. I’ve seen other chickens eat the entrails of their fallen comrades as they waited for their own slaughter, but these gals seemed to have some comprehension that the dead bird was one of their own, and enough sense to infer that what was happening to her could happen to them. Or perhaps it wasn’t the breed at all, but rather that these were all girls, while the entrail-eating monsters were all boys.