Did I ever mention that chickens are cannibals?

I didn’t discover this charming factoid until I came to the farm. (One finds it so rarely on cereal boxes.) At first, I questioned if it were possible. Chickens as cannibals? Reptilian, sure. Fierce when hungry, fond of dust baths, not fond of egg-collectors, all this I grant readily. But cannibals? The mind hesitates to take that step, particularly after breakfast.

But I have taken it. I have crossed that bridge. In fact, the bridge is in flames, and I whistle merrily. I truly believe that chickens are cannibals. Let me tell you why.

As you probably don’t know unless you’re stalking me and staying alert, the farmers here use a system called the “chicken tractor”. Unfortunately, this isn’t the whimsical Seussian contraption to which the imagination leaps. But it’s still neat. You put the chicken coop on wheels, then use a temporary fence to enclose a small pasture. The chickens eat the grass and manure the ground. When they’ve worn the grass lower than the average lawnmower, you move the coop and fence to a new spot. In one fell swoop, the grass is cut, the chicken feed supplemented, and the ground far more fertile.

It’s amazingly cheap and efficient. The one drawback is moving the fence. It’s not strenuous work, and normally I think nothing of pulling each fiberglass post and keeping it from getting tangled in the badminton-esque netting. However, if something besides a post is already tangled in that netting, my air of casual ease vanishes. Especially if, as happened this morning, that something is a chicken skeleton.

I thought I’d seen chicken skeletons before. Oops. For the record, the chicken skeleton in a pan after a hearty meal with visiting relatives is one thing, and a chicken skeleton that surprises you from a fence with an ominous wave of its dangling, meatless legs is another.

Both the long, long neck (some of which was probably backbone) and one of the legs were entwined in the netting. I don’t know what happened to the wings or rib cage; all I had the pleasure of meeting were the neck and legs. Far from your usual fluffy chicken, this was more like a headless rudimentary droid.

Everything, everything was picked clean, down to where the joint where the lizard scales began. Considering the overall skeletal motif, it was unsettling at best that the reptile legs and claws (rarely attractive to begin with) jutted in perfect condition from the dry bones with a jaunty air as if all was well.

If you’re still reading and curious, I suppose you ought to know that one of the unwritten rules of the “chicken tractor” process is that you may not collect the chicken fence while it is adorned with a chicken cadaver. Like any other obstruction, this chicken had to go.

You will be proud to hear that I did not run away screaming. No. I did not shy from my duty. I braced myself, then used a rock to twist the bones out. That is, I tried to use a rock. Apparently the late chicken had had a knack for getting him or herself securely trapped in fences. After several attempts to solve the problem without physical contact between myself and my new friend, I realized that the skeleton was simply not going to twist out. I would have to touch it.

I now have one more reason to dislike chicken feet.

So you can see why I’m a believer in the darker side of poultry. Not that it’s all that dark. After all, maggots would have taken forever to do what the friends of the dearly departed accomplished in days. Distasteful as it is to watch the flock and imagine them sizing each other up (there’s a brilliant novel here, I know it), I would much rather move a skeleton than a corpse brimming with the smaller recyclers. Other birds are scavengers. Why not chickens?

And despite the enjoyably grotesque flavor of my little experience, I must close with the honest note that it wasn’t all that gross. This is the kind of thing you read and think, “I would vomit. I would. I could never ever ever get within a fairway drive of a thing like that.” But you’re wrong. I promise.

The animal portion of us human beings has too strong a kinship with bones, muscles, rotting flesh, and all the other accoutrements of a physical world for you to stay horrified long. You get used to it. Fast. Come and see.