When I was a teenager we went to a chook farm where the birds spent their entire adult life in a cage. None of them looked like the chook in the picture above, however they didn't look like the chooks we kept at home. There were patches of missing feathers and I remember being somewhat shocked (pre-animal liberation days). Anyway we took about 15 of them home and they turned out to be pretty good layers, despite being past their use by date at the chook farm. They all recovered and thrived, living on into old age.
We also had plenty of half wild cats, none of whom ever thought to attack the chooks, but they would run in and share meals in the chookyard. Now I have a couple of spoilt rotten hens and a marauding Burmese cat (huge) who keeps trying to grab and kill my poor chooks. Seemed to get a reprieve over Easter, but the cat had (another) fair dinkum attempt today. Can't let the chooks out of their henhouse, unless within running distance, as a result. Really cross about this and none of the school kids or their parents in the immediate area seem to know who owns the cat.
