I haven’t watched EVERY season of Survivor, but I HAVE been watching the show every season since Africa. Several seasons have shown chickens as a reward for the survivors playing, and I have YET to see a survivor know what the hell they were doing when it comes to chickens. Instead, I scream at the screen, and swear I will NEVER. WATCH. THIS. SHOW. AGAIN. if said survivors don’t do the right thing THIS time with their chickens.

SPOILER ALERT!! If you have not watched Survivor Cayagan’s  March 12th, 2014 episode, Our Time To Shine, you can CLICK HERE and watch it before you read any further.

This year did not fail to infuriate me, as I watched the survivors of Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty fumble all over themselves and squander yet ANOTHER reward of potentially never ending food supply.

photo credit harvenyc on flickr

Want to survive chickens on Survivor?  Let’s break this down a little bit.

1. When you bring your chickens home, don’t let them out of their cage for a couple nights. This will create a “home” location in your chicken’s roosting instinct. Chickens return to their roost EVERY. NIGHT. They can roam free all over camp once they have woken up in the same place more than once, and will instinctively return to their roost at night. This means, they can forage for food during the day, which means if they didn’t come with food, you can rest easy. 
2. Point one leads into point two. IF your chickens get out, and you haven’t let them get their “home” location set with a two night stay there, DO NOT chase them all over the place!! Just keep an eye on them… and see where they roost at night. Then walk right up to them, and catch them! Chickens go into a trance like state when they are roosting, and don’t run from you when it is dark.
3. HENS DON’T NEED ROOSTERS TO MAKE EGGS!! This one kills me. This season, on Survivor Cayagan, the beauty tribe kills a chicken on the first night. They were given a rooster and THREE hens. They butchered a HEN. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?! I’ll leave off with the commentary of how far removed we are from our food sources today… just read the beautiful quote above that the handsome (yet apparently brainless) L.J. gave us in last night’s episode. Had the tribe known their chickens even a LITTLE BIT, they would have known to butcher the ROOSTER. (and known how to tell which one that would be) Which is totally useless for anything OTHER than food and early wake up calls in a survival situation. (they have plenty of uses on the farm) That would have left them with three laying hens, which would provide them with up to three eggs a DAY!! Every couple days, each survivor could have had a WHOLE EGG worth of priceless proteins in their bellies. Indefinitely. 
4. Which leads me to the last point. You can collect eggs, and leave them out in the shade, (or buried in the cool sand) for weeks before they will go bad. This means that if the tribe doesn’t want to ration out small portions of egg every day, they could let them pile up, and have larger amounts every couple days. 

Does anyone else have issues with how crazy stupid Survivor contestants are when it comes to something as simple as CHICKENS!? My friend Christi swears the “Survivor interview process goes something like this…
Producer: What do you know about chickens?

Potential Survivor: I know you need a rooster and a hen to get eggs.

Producer: What do you know about making a fire?

Potential Survivor: Absolutely nothing.

Producer: Congrats. You’re on the show.”
I think she might be right. I was ready to totally swear off the show if J’Tia hadn’t gotten voted out. At least they got THAT part right. Maybe there are a FEW brain cells between the Brain tribe after all. 
Still.
Every year, I rant on line about how chickens work, but obviously, potential survivor contestants are not seeing my posts, so I have created the cute little image above for you all to help me get the word out. Pin, Share, whatever you need to, so that I can stop screaming at my television, and future contestants can survive chickens on Survivor.

1. Anita
   
   says

   March 16, 2014 at 12:29 am

   I’m with you!

2. Brenda Young
   
   says

   March 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm

   That’s reality tv for ya….lol loved your post! Pinned it

3. Chris
   
   says

   May 8, 2014 at 11:36 pm

   I am endlessly floored by how much stuff you do.
   
   
   I’m getting bruises.

   C