Sinister Chickens

What makes chickens so SINISTER?

(adj. - threatening, menacing, ominous, forbidding, baleful, frightening, alarming, disturbing, disquieting, dark)

Could it be those odd, brilliant red bits of skin protruding from their heads - the 'comb'?

That's just weird, folks. Maybe if it was the same color as the surrounding feathers, that wouldn't seem so disturbing. 

Look here  for more on the menacing COMB of a chicken.

Maybe the SINISTER-ness is all about the scaly and pointy, taloned FEET. 

How do those match their fluffy-puffy, friendly seeming bodies?

There's a lurking family story involving chicken feet and the pulling of a certain tendon that will cause the foot to open and close in an disturbing way. I'm fuzzy on that one - I think I blacked out during the telling.

But what about their EYES! 

It was my impression that a chicken's eyes DO NOT BLINK. That they remain staring, at you, at all times. 

And don't they seem to be glaring...?   Why do chickens look so angry?

Just to keep it educational, read here about chicken's eyes to find out if they blink or not.

While I have no trouble imagining sweet little mice snuggling into matchbox beds,  

jacket wearing bunnies (sans pants) raiding gardens, 

or toads out for a joyride in a gypsy wagon ---

I just can't get my mind around the loveliness of a chicken.