hen

Old Major's speech first identified the hens as victims of human exploitation: their eggs were taken to market, and few ever hatched into chicks. After the Rebellion, the hens, like other animals, were taught Animalism but were too "stupid" to learn the Seven Commandments, relying on the simplified maxim "Four legs good, two legs bad." They worked diligently, but their produce was soon appropriated by the pigs.

When Napoleon decided to sell eggs to procure grain, the hens rebelled. Led by three young Black Minorca pullets, they smashed their eggs on the floor. Napoleon starved them and decreed death for any animal feeding them. After five days, they capitulated; nine hens died. Later, during the terror, the three ringleader hens confessed to being incited by Snowball in a dream and were executed.

The hens, like all animals, lived in a state of perpetual hunger and hard labor, yet they never lost their sense of pride in Animal Farm. When the pigs finally walked on their hind legs, appearing in human clothes and carrying whips, the hens were among the silent crowd that watched the transformation. The sheep's new bleating of "Four legs good, two legs better" drowned any potential protest. The Commandments were revised to a single phrase: "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others." The pigs became indistinguishable from humans, and the hens' last connection to the revolutionary dream was the secret humming of Beasts of England, which no one dared to sing aloud.