CockadoodleMoo.org

Mark:

Our rooster — Big Al — is always after every chicken in the pen to have sex. One day recently, Al could not get anybody to do it with him no matter how much he chased them around. So he went in the enclosed patio outside their coop and gave the cluck that says he's just found something really tasty. Junebug was foolish enough to believe him. She came running to see, and the second she was past the door, he pounced on her. 

From this, Junebug learned the art of deceit. We just got a new chicken named Ginger who was left on the doorstep of the Nevada Humane Society with a note saying she was a pet chicken and her owners had to move into a condo and couldn't keep her. 

On the first day we introduced Ginger to the others, Ginger stuck close to us, fearing that the others would attack her. (She wasn't wrong in this belief; establishing a literal pecking order is important to chickens.) So Junebug starts pecking this way and that, as if she's doing nothing more than humming dum-de-dum-dum and looking for corn bits. Because of this, Ginger lets her guard down and when Junebug gets close enough, she pounces on Ginger to let her know who's boss.

I haven't noticed if anyone else has expressed exasperation, but Al definitely has. We have three mostly white hens who are all of the same breed. They hang out together, and they seem to live in their own little universe, uninterested in what the other chickens are doing. Dianne digs inside the pen now and then, often turning up worms. Well, one day, events transpired so the three white hens were sitting around a squirming worm. They were sitting there looking this way and that, and Al was watching them. Any of the other chickens would've ripped the worm into a pieces. Finally, Al couldn't take it anymore. He walked over and pecked each one in the head as if to say "Stupid, stupid, stupid" and then took the worm himself.

 That's Ginger staying safe atop a table in her pen on her first day meeting the other chickens.