One evening, the sun set and the sky gradually grew dark. In a chicken coop, all the hens hopped onto wooden perches to prepare for sleep. These perches were called “roosts,” where the chickens rested at night.
Among them was a hen with particularly white feathers, short legs, and a wobbly gait. She always laid an egg on time, one a day, never missing a day. The other hens thought she was very dignified and considered her a “hen of high status.”
When the white hen flew up to the roost, she accidentally brushed her feathers with her beak and lost a small feather.She looked at it and smiled, saying, “Oh, the more I peck at myself, the cleaner and prettier I become!” After saying that, she happily shook her head and closed her eyes to sleep.
The hen next to her was still awake and heard what she said
But the hen next to her was still awake. She had very sharp ears and liked to listen to others talk.She heard the white hen say, “The more I peck, the prettier I get,” and began to think, “That doesn’t sound right.”
So she turned her head and whispered to the hen next to her, “Did you hear that? There’s a hen who is pecking her own feathers out to make herself look prettier! If I were a rooster, I wouldn’t even look at her. That’s ridiculous.”
She meant it to be a secret, but she didn’t expect it to spread so quickly.
The owl family heard it
Living on the beam above the chicken coop was a family of owls: Mother Owl, Father Owl, and their little baby. Owls have very sharp ears and can hear everything clearly.
Owl Mom heard this and immediately widened her eyes, flapping her wings and saying, “Oh my! Did you hear that? A hen plucked all her feathers to attract the roosters’ attention! What a disgrace! That’s so improper!”
Father Owl quickly said, “We mustn’t let the children hear that. It’s not good.” But he actually wanted to say it himself, so he added, “However… you can go tell the owl lady across the way. She’s always so proper. She’s the one to talk to about such things.”
So Mother Owl flew off with a “whoosh” to chat with her neighbor.
The pigeons joined in the gossip
As the owl flew, her wings flapped and she called out, “Whoo! Whoo! Woo-hoo!” The pigeons in the cage below heard her.
They immediately pricked up their ears. “What’s going on? What happened?”
One pigeon said, “I just heard that a hen in the chicken coop across the way plucked all her feathers to please a rooster! How stupid! She must be freezing now. She might even be dead.”
Another pigeon immediately replied, “Where? Is that true?”
“Yes! I heard it from the owl herself! It’s absolutely true!”
Soon, all the pigeons were cooing, “There’s a hen, no, maybe two! They plucked all their feathers to court the rooster! Now they’ve caught a cold and are dying!”
The rooster woke up and started crowing loudly
At this point, it was almost dawn. The rooster woke up, jumped onto the wall, and crowed, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” He wasn’t fully awake yet, his eyes were still a bit blurry, but he was already shouting loudly:
“Everyone, listen up! Something terrible has happened! Three hens fell in love with the same rooster, were so heartbroken that they plucked all their feathers out! In the end, they all died! It’s so tragic! It’s so ugly!I can’t keep this from everyone. I have to let the whole world know!“
At that moment, a bat happened to fly by, heard the commotion, and joined in, shouting, ”Let everyone know! Let everyone know!”
So the chickens crowed, the pigeons cooed, the bats flew about, and the whole village began to spread the news.
The story became more and more absurd
At first, it was just “a hen lost a feather,” but now it had become:
“Five hens fought over a rooster, jealous of each other, pecking at themselves until their feathers fell out and they were covered in blood, and in the end, they all died! Their family was disgraced, and their owner lost money!”
This story was told with such detail that everyone who heard it believed it to be true.
But what about the white hen who originally lost a feather? She had no idea what was being said about her. When she woke up, she still looked as elegant as ever. Upon hearing the other chickens discussing the incident, she shook her head immediately:
“Hmph! I can’t stand chickens like that! Doing such things to attract roosters is so shameful! This kind of thing shouldn’t be kept secret—everyone should know about it!”
She added, “I’ll find a way to get this in the newspaper so that everyone in the country knows how bad these disobedient hens are! They deserve to be unlucky, and their owners deserve to lose money!”
And you won’t believe it—the story actually made it into the newspaper.
The headline read: “Several hens driven to self-harm and death by love, causing an uproar in the poultry industry.”
And the cause? It was all because one hen accidentally lost a feather.
The Truth Behind the Story
In fact, the entire incident was completely harmless. No one was injured, no one went mad, and no one died.
The white hen was simply preening her feathers when she accidentally knocked off a small feather and jokingly remarked, “I’m just trying to look pretty.” But this single remark was overheard by a restless hen, who embellished it into “she’s plucking her feathers on purpose to look better.”
Then the owl, the pigeon, and the rooster passed it on one after another, adding more details each time: from “a single feather” to “plucking all her feathers,” from “one chicken” to “five chickens,” and from “preening her feathers” to “going mad with love and killing herself.”
Finally, even the newspaper believed it and reported it as a true story.
A single feather thus became a “chicken coop tragedy.”
What lesson does this story teach us?
1. Don’t easily believe what you hear
Many people hear something and immediately believe it, then rush to tell others. But have you ever thought about where the story came from? Is there any evidence to support it? Did the person who told you add their own ideas?
Just like the mother hen in the story, she only heard a joke and passed it on as if it were true. As a result, the story became more and more exaggerated and completely distorted.
2. A word passed on to ten people is no longer the original
Have you ever played the “telephone game”? The first person says a sentence, and by the time it reaches the tenth person, it is often completely different. This is “misinformation.”
In real life, we hear people say things like, “I heard…” or “Everyone is saying…” or “So-and-so said…” every day. But how many people have passed on these words? How many times have they been altered? We have no idea.
So, when you hear something, don’t rush to repost, comment, or get angry. Ask yourself: Is this true? Can I confirm it?
3. Sometimes, it’s not the facts that hurt you, but the rumors
That white hen didn’t do anything wrong, but she was accused of “corrupting morals” and “killing her companions.” If she were a human being, she might have been cyberbullied.
There are many such cases in real life: a person does something ordinary, but it is misunderstood, exaggerated, and distorted, and in the end, their reputation is ruined.
What really hurts people is not the incident itself, but those who keep spreading rumors, exaggerating, and stirring up trouble.
4. Don’t be the “gossip,” be the “investigator”
We may all be like that sleepless hen, wanting to share every little thing we hear. But remember: not all news is worth spreading.
If you hear something, pause for a moment and think:
- Who said it?
- Is there any evidence?
- Could it be misunderstood?
Sometimes, not saying anything is more powerful than speaking.
5. Small things can become big things, but you can also choose not to let them
A single feather is insignificant, but because everyone adds a comment like “I think,” “I heard,” or “It must be true,” it becomes big news about “five chickens dying tragically.”
It’s like social media today: a photo, a sentence, or a clip is taken out of context, accompanied by an exaggerated headline, and instantly goes viral.
But we can choose to be different: when we see the news, we don’t rush to take sides; when we hear gossip, we don’t rush to share it; when we encounter controversy, we ask for the truth first.
This is true clarity.
Summary
This story looks like a fairy tale about chickens and owls, but it’s actually about us humans.
We spend our days passing on messages, listening to the news, and checking trending topics. But how many things start with a small feather and end up becoming a huge storm?
Next time you hear “I heard…,” take a moment to smile and ask:
“Wait, is that really true?”
