Chickens.

Chickens are neat.  Truthfully they are also filthy nasty critters.  Good cooking though.

When you have chickens in your backyard your yard will have less bugs.  You don't realize it but chickens are predators.  I saw something on Facebook saying that T. Rex's are closer to modern birds than to some other dinosaurs like the Stegosaurus.  I can believe it.  A small snake was in the chicken pen, they found him, no more snake.  They went for bugs like you wouldn't believe.  They were hell on mice also.

Chickens are dumb.  In the Great Slaughter of June, our German Shepherd killed four or five poultry.  Every single one of them could see the others being tracked and slaughtered and they still went out one at a time to explore our backyard.  One of our chickens was a Polish Crested, had a "puffball" of feathers on her head.  She couldn't see a damn thing, we put her crest into a "topknot" and she could see fine.  Stupid chicken.

They are so useful though.  You can eat the eggs, eat the juveniles and even eat the older chickens.  Oddly enough, pretty much the only people that will buy the "spent hens" are the public schools.  Once a chicken is old enough to not lay she is also a bit tough.  The chicken farms sell them at a discounted price and the only buyer is schools.  In addition to cooking, they are great for your garden.  They rid it of pests and the chicken guano is great fertilizer.

I miss our chickens.