Chickens have feelings too:
The writer E.B. White, patron saint of us dwellers in darkness who have come late to the barnyard, wrote about the mystery and menace of country life from his saltwater farm in Maine. He wrote about weak lambs who die in the night, heifers who refuse to breed, colts who go lame for no discernible reason. The theme that runs through all his farm accounts is the extremely tenuous thread that links livestock to life, a thread he turned into the world’s most famous web when he wrote Charlotte’s Web.
The story White never wrote was one that I reckon he deemed too hard for young readers to take, the story of a tame hen who willfully tore a chick to pieces and then, crazed with remorse, went into the cellar and committed suicide by eating moth balls.
...
The story this week that chickens are capable of feeling empathy might have surprised some folk but it sure didn’t surprise me. I’ve known chickens who were capable of love, jealousy, selfishness and lust. I’ve observed the politics of the chicken yard and found them to be as complicated and heartbreaking as any parish council in the land.
