Our chickens -- we have four in the back yard -- are adorable and sweet, if dim-witted. One of them looks like a bearded professor and actually likes to be picked up. They'd follow us anywhere for a banana. True, they tell each other off now and then (for instance, when one hogs too much banana), but they are nice to us unless we're grabbing them and they're scared -- then we're at risk of a scratch from scrambling feet.

On the other hand, we don't have roosters -- because our law only permits hens (and only four) in the city, AND because they are not so nice, especially to the hens.

We are raising our chickens only for eggs, soil benefit (they can do wonders for the compost), and companionship, although we're not against raising chickens for meat (but our local law also forbids backyard slaughtering). These four girls are truly "free range," in that they spend their days outside the coop, eating weeds, bugs, and produce scraps from our compost. Studies have shown that eggs from truly free-range hens (as opposed to hens that are allowed to "look" outside now and then) are many, many times higher in all the "good stuff" nutritionally, and many, many times lower in any of the purported "bad stuff" that's in commercially/conventionally produced eggs.