Comment on Could feral chicken take over the Amazon ?

BassTurd@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Vilian@lemmy.ca ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  shit man, put that chicken in there and only think you gonna do is make a few big cats, snakes, crocodile happier, also birds, even native people, hell even insects, if that chicken never encountered scorpions, they don’t have immunity to the sting like others chickens

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  • loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah, you might be right, byt just to feed the debate I’ll take the defense of the chicken :

    • Their sheer number is a big factor : There can be hundreds of thousands in a single farm. Even in tens of thousands die on the first days, the next morning, the survivors will be less fat and more alert
    • Red junglefowls are quite adept at living in a rainforest environment despite being nearly flightless and living close to many predators. Their strategy of being diurnal and hiding in the trees at night to avoid mostly nocturnal predators works pretty well and many Amazon predators are noxturnal as well. Mass farm chicken might be too fat at first, but it shouldn’t last too long and feral chicken are known to quickly recover their instincts and start brooding in trees.

    -[Tinamus](en.wikipediaorg/wiki/White-throatedₜᵢₙₐₘₒᵤ?wₚᵣₒᵥ₌… while very var from chicken classification-wise (and closer to ostriches), fill a very similar niche and have a similar lifestyle to jungle fowls, also being very poor flyers. This proves that this type of lifestyle can also work in the Amazon. And with tinamu populations being destabilized by deforestation, and chicken being more adapted to a variety of lifestyles, they could outcompete them and steal their niche.

    • Just for the scorpion part : Chicken rarely encounrer scorpions due to these being nocturnal. And when they do, it’s a pretty even match : The scorpions might poison them, but the feathers make it harder and the chicken might eat the scorpion first. Source

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    • Devi@kbin.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Something that might come up in a commercial farm escape is debeaking. They cut the end off the beak to stop them fighting in crowded conditions and that will decrease their chances to defend themselves in the wild.

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      • loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Wow, I didn’t know about that… It’s even more troublesome for the hens if it keeps them from feeding of worms and bugs. If part of them survive long enough to breed, this won’t be a problem for the next generation… But this is already a big “if”.

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      • octoperson@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        That’s only a concern for one generation tho, which afaik for commercially bred chickens might be just a matter of weeks

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