Yes, poor AoE4 chickens 
Motionless. Akin to lawn flamingos inside the Town Center…
Source of screen grab: The Complete Beginner Guide to Age of Empires 4 (by Spirit Of The Law)
If they can’t be animated in AoE4, a newer game, I don’t know that they could ever be animated in AoE2
Ha, just kidding 
I don’t think we need them in AoE2 anyways… not large enough fowl to warrant inclusion, imo. And clustering them like a berry bush seems weird to me.
I’m sure the artists on AoE2 could make it work pretty well, so I’m not too worried at the notion. I just don’t know that it’d be a net positive for my enjoyment level. I’m mostly neutral on this, but with a slight lean toward worry – b/c it might look strange due to their small size, or feel strange to task villys on a cluster of chickens.
I also imagine 4 or 5 chickens in a cluster will have some weird, very basic, repetitious animation pattern so their bodies don’t crash through each other. Like, all of them standing in place, just pecking the ground, or just moving ever-so-slightly. Multiply this one cluster by 5 other clusters you’ve maneuvered to your TC where they each repeat the same repetitious, non-randomized animations… and I see a recipe for it not looking that great. (Not to mention even just trying to guide 3 or 4 chicken clusters to your TC and the geo-crashing or noticeably repetitious animations involved with that.)
EDIT: Though, I guess the fish clusters in the water don’t bother me. But chickens would have their own challenges, for sure