Introductory intertitle reads: “Here’s an odd fowl, that walks backward to go forward so she can look behind to see where she went!”
M/S of a little girl who the narrator tells us is called Mary O’Connor (note: this is American author Flannery O’Connor as a little girl) from Savannah, Georgia (at least that is what it sounds like). Mary holds a chicken which she lifts onto her shoulder. C/U of the chicken as it walks backwards. Narrator claims that this is the only chicken in the world that walks backwards.
It looks pretty realistic and then we see geese and ducks walking backwards too so it is presumably a camera trick using film reversal technique. Shots of cows and horses seeming to walk and trot backwards.