An interesting story has been circulating on social media in the recent weeks. A Mississippi woman, Megan Schmidt, kept what was described as a “Backyard Rooster”, a male chicken by the name of HeiHei, in their home.
In the recent days, HeiHei attacked the family’s young child. In a now deleted post online, Schmidt wrote:
“Well, it finally happened,”
“Our mean ole backyard rooster, HeiHei, attacked the baby child!! We were SO lucky that he didn’t do any more damage than he did. Half an inch, and she would have lost an eye!”
Not quite friends anymore
“Nevertheless, he got what was coming to him!”
“Mama don’t play when it comes to her babies. HeiHei nuggets for dinner!”
At this point, reconciliation is no longer possible.
Looking at the picture, it does look like HeiHei was indeed turned into dinner for the family that night.
The story has turned controversial, with some people crying fowl over the chicken’s received treatment, proclaiming that it’s no way to treat a pet. There are also those who argue that given the “it’s finally happened” phrasing, Schmidt was aware of the animal’s aggression but did little to prevent the attack, and hence responsibility lies on her. Others see this as what happens with farm animals, and that HeiHei, through his behavior, simply moved himself up to the front of the line.
Roosters can have some pretty impressive and potentially dangerous spurs on their legs.
Looking carefully in the first picture, though, one can see a well built chicken coop in a spacious yard in the background. HeiHei appeared to be part of a chicken flock used for food, and not purely an individual pet. The description of him being a “backyard rooster” seem to also support this, as this is a more technical term used by chicken keepers for roosters they keep around to perhaps protect the rest of the flock.
This looks like a case of a farm/food animal that’s maybe also somewhat of a pet, being moved up to the front of the line for human consumption for whatever reason. Similar things happens in the invertebrate hobby, with people who keep colonies of feeder animals used to feed other larger pets.
Regardless, though, it’s pretty surreal to see pictures of the bird before hand, and then the child happily devouring the nuggets immediately afterwards.
Temple of Zagan 