A chicken coop located on a farm in the northwestern part of France was the scene of an unusual display of tenacity and teamwork on the part of 3,000 hens, who ganged up to kill a juvenile fox that had entered their domain, according to a BBC report.
The news outlet reported that the body of the small fox was found the following day in a corner of the coop, where it suffered blows to its neck from the chickens’ beaks.
“There was a herd instinct and they attached him with their beaks,” Pascal Daniel, head of farming at the agricultural school Gros-Chêne, told the BBC.
The 3,000 hens in the coup make up only half of the free-range chicken population on a five-acre site on the farm. The AFP reported that most of the chickens spend the daytime outside, when the coop is kept open.
