Did they really shoot chickens in the opening shot?!!

I don't think Sam Peckinpah cared much about animals and as people have said it was shot in Mexico and given Peckinpah's track record real animals were almost certainly killed.
Personally I eat meat and I consider the making of masterpiece more important than the lives of animals.

Chickens eat their own excrement and their own babies. Anyone who wants to kill people for inhumane treatment of animals does not qualify as a "hippie." Peckinpah was a visionary artist who followed his muse into dark and unsettling places. Bob Dylan is a wuss.

Yes, Peckinpah could be cruel. "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" starts out with a lizard being shot, and it ruined the movie for me. Bloody Sam had a childish, bloodlust streak. In many ways, he was America's best director, but he should've left animals alone.

Drugs and alcohol increasingly made Peckinpah bitter and degenerate, because killing
living creatures is an expression of artistic impotence.

Obama's so good, you'll forget he's black.

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For all the people saying chickens don't have brains or the ability to perceive or feel things...

From an Interview with Dr. Ian Duncan, Professor of Poultry Ethology
University of Guelph
Ontario, Canada

Q: Can chickens and turkeys feel pain?

A: Absolutely. It is indisputable that poultry are capable of feeling pain. All poultry species are sentient vertebrates and all the available evidence shows that they have a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. Poultry can suffer by feeling pain, fear and stress.

Q: Chickens and turkeys are widely regarded to be of inferior intelligence, so-called "dumb animals." Is this an accurate assessment of their intelligence?

A: Not at all. These animals are poorly understood. Turkeys, for example, do not always do what a turkey grower wants them to, and therefore they're classified as dumb animals, whereas in fact turkeys possess marked intelligence. This is revealed by such behavioral indices as their complex social relationships, and their many different methods of communicating with each other, both visual and vocal. Chickens, as well, are far more intelligent than generally regarded, and possess underestimated cognitive complexity.

Q: Do chickens and turkeys possess distinct personalities?

A: Yes. For example, hens of a modern laying-strain are very similar genetically, and lay a similar number of eggs. When one looks at their behavior, however, it is obvious that they do have very distinct personalities.

http://www.upc-online.org/thinking/sentient.html

Eat meat or don't eat meat, but don't deny animals their status as living, breathing, feeling, thinking creatures. It just makes humans look stupid and cruel to reduce sentient creatures to nothing more than plants.

Animals act out of instinct. Humans are capable of enormous cruelty and brutality toward each other and "lesser" beings.

And, no, I'm not a PETA member and yes, I eat meat. I don't derive pleasure out of torturing and killing animals for sport or art and I don't have the attitude of "it's just a chicken" therefore, anything goes and it doesn't matter how you treat it. Before it's food it's a living thing. No creature deserves to be tortured and suffer and factory farming is extremely cruel. Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm just a kind person who cares about sentient creatures not suffering in misery.

http://www.mercyforanimals.org

Its simple imo...if you eat it there is no problem if you kill it!
No difference between a clean shot through the neck or chopping off chicken heads!

Whats the real problem is hunting for trophies...

It might be helpful to always look for Sam Peckinpah as director and if he's listed, skip the movie.

Peckinpah's trademark is violence of any kind. I've read somewhere that his movies were the inspiration for the spaghetti westerns - and you can find all kinds of gratuitous violence in them.