# With God as my witness, I thought chickens could fly. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 20, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687 "2015-07-20T13:04:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/21 "2015-07-21T04:11:22Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Who knew chickens were also so altruistic? Or suicidal. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/22 "2015-07-21T09:57:16Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It may surprise some people, but chickens do get angry. And it may surprise people that Ducks don’t. When stressed, ducks duck. They don’t run around like chicken Little yelling that the sky is falling. It’s a flock behavior. When chickens are in danger, they set up a load clamour to alert the flock, and roosters will attack (donno about hens). When ducks are in danger, they duck down behind the reads, and hope that the fox takes some other duck first. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/23 "2015-07-21T12:39:37Z")
The other thing a duck can do is … you know … fly away. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/24 "2015-07-21T12:40:44Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > And it may surprise people that Ducks don’t. When stressed, ducks duck. They don’t run around like chicken Little yelling that the sky is falling. > > It’s a flock behavior. When chickens are in danger, they set up a load clamour to alert the flock, and roosters will attack (donno about hens). When ducks are in danger, they duck down behind the reads, and hope that the fox takes some other duck first. However, ducks are very willing to sacrifice themselves for their ducklings. When faced with danger a mother ducker will scoot off across the water making lots of noise to distract predators from their offspring. Hens also will also cover their chicks to protect them. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/25 "2015-07-21T13:16:05Z")
So when Mother Duck or Mother Hen get eaten by Mr. Fox, who takes care of the kiddies then? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/26 "2015-07-21T13:19:37Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > So when Mother Duck or Mother Hen get eaten by Mr. Fox, who takes care of the kiddies then? Mrs. Fox. She loves chicks and ducklings. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/27 "2015-07-21T14:43:54Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > For about a year when I was a teenager, we had chickens. We started out clipping their wings and the darned things would still fly over the 4-foot fence and get eaten by our dog. I can vouch for that. We had a five foot fence around the back yard with chickens on the other side and SOP in the mornings was to release the hounds, then pause a few moments to hear if we detected any screaming chickens (it was generally still dark) before going back to bed. We called the flock the Crack Suicide Squad after _Holy Grail_. We would grab the flashlight, rescue the one or two screamers from slavering jaws of death. and throw them back over the fence. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/28 "2015-07-21T15:38:07Z")
I would think that any dog big enough to catch and kill a chicken would be big enough to jump a 4 foot fence … but dogs don’t fly. I’ve seen a peacock fly straight up 20 feet, hover, and then glide down to his roost, 4 foot train and all … I don’t think the basic chicken can do that. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/29 "2015-07-21T15:40:58Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I would think that any dog big enough to catch and kill a chicken would be big enough to jump a 4 foot fence … but dogs don’t fly. A dog can be trained to stay out of the chicken yard, but still figure one is fair game if it gets out. And [some dogs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eyss6tDHz8) [can fly.](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kKmXftupFa4/maxresdefault.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/30 "2015-07-21T15:47:47Z")
It doesn’t take a very big dog to kill a chicken. My dad’s 15lb chihuahua mix killed several of his. My own dogs are simply trained to not bother the chickens. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/31 "2015-07-21T18:35:04Z")
I guess I stand corrected on both accounts … [hangs head in shame] … chihuahuas fly like a chicken !!! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/32 "2015-07-22T22:25:29Z")
To elaborate on the living room thing: My mom has laying hens. One of them was getting badly henpecked, and she wanted to give the poor thing a chance to recover (once they peck enough to draw blood, the blood entices them to peck all the more, usually to the demise of the peckee).So she had the chicken in question in the house, upstairs, in a cardboard box. Once it healed up, she was carrying it back down the stairs to rejoin the others… but she didn’t realize that the bottom of the box had gotten damp. She was halfway down the stairs when the bottom of the box fell out, and the poor hen found herself with little choice in the matter. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/33 "2015-07-23T00:36:09Z")
I’ve seen a wild turkey fly 20 feet up into a tree, and sit there for an hour or so. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/34 "2015-07-23T13:28:00Z")
BREAKING NEWS … [chickens DO fly](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1432/followup-chickens-can-so-fly) … “splat flying” they call it now. Good thing I’ve a refined taste in both crow and shoe-leather. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/35 "2015-07-23T13:41:19Z")
Wild turkeys are much better flyers than domestic chickens. Someone mentioned upthread commercial meat birds: those guys (Cornish Xs) can’t fly. They can barely walk by the time they’re full grown, and mostly lay around trying not to have a heart attack. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/36 "2015-07-23T14:33:55Z")
Apparently, the only disagreement here is how to define the word “fly.” Chickens are at about the level of the _Wright Brothers’_ predecessors. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/37 "2015-07-23T16:21:07Z")
The climactic scene of the first Freddy the Pig book involved a rooster who was just barely able to fly across a moat, thereby rescuing the gang from a menacing pack of alligators. Ah, that was good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/38 "2015-07-23T18:26:21Z")
> [@voltaire](#): > > Apparently, the only disagreement here is how to define the word “fly.” > > Chickens are at about the level of the _Wright Brothers’_ predecessors. I’d say they were about at the level of the original Wright Flyer. Maybe slightly more advanced because they don’t need a rail cart to take off. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2015, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/39 "2015-07-23T21:37:02Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Well I don’t know where you grew up but we never allowed chickens in the bedrooms. Of course not - they’d spook the sheep. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687/40 "2015-07-25T12:51:03Z")
We had a fighting cock crossed with a silky that would take off and fly a distance of over 200 yards and roost very high in a tree every night and then come back down in the morning. This was at a horse stable. I always wanted to enter than chicken in a chicken flying contest. he could make the 200 yards effortlessly. from what I have read online he could have been a champion! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/with-god-as-my-witness-i-thought-chickens-could-fly/725687.md?page=3)