And they keep the bugs down. We had about 10 chickens on our little farm. I used to like them puttering around while I did yard and parking lot stuff. As far as I can surmise, my activities tended to stir up the bugs, so there was no "friendship" involved in their hanging around while I worked.
I had my wits shaken up once when a bird suddenly flapped right past me and snatched a flying bug out of midair. I kiddingly mentioned once before that I thought it would have taken a battleship's firing computer to figure out mutual trajectories and the midair intersection point between the bird's beak and the bug.
A good story deserves retelling. After all, that's how we got the Bible.
Terry, 230RN