Are chickens dangerous?

Here are some perks when keeping and raising chickens: they aren’t picky and will eat almost anything humans can, they are fun to observe, they have unique personalities with many expressions.

However, when getting stressed, chickens can show aggressive behaviors like pecking other chickens, possibly attacking humans. They can also spread some diseases to humans. So are chickens dangerous?

Are chickens dangerous?

Chicken aren’t dangerous to much both in terms of carrying disease and attacking humans. With proper measures, you can prevent yourself from getting affected by the chickens or attacked by them.

Can chickens make you infected?

Chickens are fun to keep, raise, and observe, but just like many animals, they can carry harmful germs or viruses which can cause bad effects on human health.

Although it is uncommon that a chicken can make you sick, the viruses it bacteria they carry are no joke, especially if you don’t pay enough attention to your chickens.

Take Salmonella for example, it appears in chickens’ poop. You may think that just cleaning the poop is enough, but they can stick to your chickens’ eggs since the pope’s exit is the same as the eggs’. And you use your hands to collect the eggs.

From here, unless you wash your hands and the eggs thoroughly, the bacteria will enter your mouth when you use your hand to hold the food.

What other disease can chickens spread to you?

Some of the diseases you can get from chickens include Campylobacter, bird flu (avian influenza), Salmonella, and E. Coli.

Although these diseases passing to humans are uncommon, people with weak or undeveloped immunity are susceptible to all of them. This includes children that are younger than 5 years old, old people, pregnant women, and more.

Also, most of these diseases can spread from being in contact with the chickens’ droppings, feces, or chickens’ poop in general.

What should you do to not get those diseases?

Wash your hands thoroughly

When raising chickens, most people will want to collect their chickens’ eggs and they use their hands to perform the task, which is where they got the bacteria or viruses from most of the time.

So, use soap and wash your hands thoroughly everytime after you collect the eggs. Alternatively, you can use your gloves to collect the eggs, but you still need to wash the gloves at a certain time.

Keep your chickens and the coop clean

You should provide your chickens with enough space in the coop and well as outside so they can go around freely and don’t feel tight. Too much chicken in a small coop will only make the poop accumulate faster.

Also, try to clean your chicken coop regularly to remove any waste or anything dirty and unhygienic so that the bacteria can’t live and develop in the chicken poop.

When getting food and water, give them enough amount only since leftover food or food on the ground can accumulate, rot, and develop those bacteria or viruses.

Can chickens attack humans?

While chickens do attack humans, especially roosters, and the injuries can sometimes be serious, chickens are not that dangerous compared to many other animals. You may get some scratches from light to heavy, but it’s rare that a chicken can kill a human.

They can sometimes attack humans

Chickens are not predators. For the most part, they tend to get on well with their owners, assuming they treat their chickens well.

Chickens can get affectionate and attached to humans. They can recognize faces and the good or bad experiences associated with it. So if you treat them well, they may show love to you.

However, chickens are not totally passive animals. Roosters will often attack their predators to defend their flock, and crow at the same time to warm the flock to stay away from danger.

The attack can also occur between chickens. They can pick each other to establish the pecking order within their flock, where some chickens will be more dominant than others.

With that being said, chickens can sometime see humans as threats and try to attack. There are many records where chickens attacked humans either single or as a group, here is one example.

Are the injuries dangerous?

Don’t worry, the best injuries a chicken can cause to you are some nasty scratches, and they can’t bite you since they have no tooth.

When you got injured by chickens, here are things you should do:

• Clean the injured area: use clean running water to clean the scratches.
• Disinfect the area: your body’s inside is now exposed to the outside, and infection may happen at any time. So use disinfectants like hydro peroxide or alcohol to clean up the area further.

You can also add some neomycin or bacitracin ointment for extra protection against infection.

• Cover the area: use bandages to cover the injured areas once you clean them up, and change the bandage regularly. Remember to keep the areas untouched.

Prevent yourself from being attacked

Roosters can attack you if they think you breach their territories, try to take precautions so that they are likely to attack.

You can also use food like grains to distract the chickens. Feeding them can also grow a relationship between you and your chickens.

Shield the attack

Get something big like a garbage lid so your can shells yourself when the chickens attack. However, you are defending yourself, not attacking the chickens, so try to not hit them with your tools.

Final thoughts

So, are chickens dangerous? Both in terms of carrying diseases and attacking humans, chickens aren’t that dangerous. However, you should still take measures to make sure they don’t cause negative effects to you.

In general, you should give your chickens enough space, food, and water so that they can live normally and happily. Also keep you chickens, the coop, and yourself clean.

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