Recent research has shown that chickens can distinguish between more than 100 faces of their own species and of humans, so they know who you are and will remember you if you treat them badly. How Smart Are Chickens (and should we be afraid of them taking over the planet)?Ī surprising number of people suffer from fear of chickens, a condition known as alektorophobia, which may not be as unreasonable as it sounds given what scientists have been discovering about them. They have the unique ability to eject the sperm of inferior roosters after copulation, however, ensuring that their genes will be coupled only with the most studly cock around. Still, hens are notoriously promiscuous, typically mating with several roosters at a time. Food, wattles, and a cock’s comb all come into play during the mating dance, which is called “tidbitting,” where the rooster repeatedly picks up and drops morsels of food on the ground in a dramatic way, while bouncing those fleshy protuberances around as much as possible. Bigger and redder is better in both instances. The size and color of a cock’s comb – the fleshy red appendage on a male chicken’s head – is also a factor, as are the wattles, the dangling red flesh beneath their chins.
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Size and strength are important, as the more powerful roosters have a higher rank in the pecking order, and are thus able to provide more food for their harem of hens. There are a few criteria, as it turns out. This is why chickens can be seen sleeping with one eye open and one eye closed, an evolutionary adaptation that allows them to keep watch for predators while they doze. Chickens have another phase of sleep that humans lack, however, called USWS (unihemispheric slow-wave sleep), in which one half of the brain is resting, while the other half is awake. We’d like to presume that most of their dreams are filled with imagery and emotions from their daily lives, just as ours are, perhaps punctuated by occasional dreams that stem from chick-hood trauma or aspirations of flying like an eagle (chickens can only fly for a few seconds at a time). Along with humans and other mammals, chickens (all birds, really) have an REM phase of sleep, a period of “rapid eye movement” that signifies dreaming. We don’t know exactly, but we do know they dream. Chickens are also known to display mourning behavior when another chicken in the flock dies, and they will show signs of depression if they are removed from the flock and placed in solitary quarters. He designed an experiment that simulated chick stress and found that the mother hens behaved as if they themselves were experiencing the pain – a classic sign of empathy. Yes, says British researcher Jo Edgar, who determined that hens, at least, experience empathy. Hens start talking to their chicks in soft tones while they are still in the egg – if you listen close you can hear them peeping back from inside the shell. Experts say that in addition to saying “cluck,” chickens “pok,” “brawk,” and “squawk.” And from these basic syllables, chickens are capable of at least 30 different calls, ranging from “hey, I found a bunch of grasshoppers” to “see you later, I’m going to lay an egg” to “come over here, you sexy rooster!” Other calls are a response to stress, which vary between those that warn of a raptor circling above and predators that attack from the ground, like foxes. How Do They Communicate?Īll that clucking is not random – chickens have a language of their own. So if you’ve never thought about what chickens might be thinking, here is some food for thought. Needless to say, there is more going on in a coop than meets the eye – chickens aren’t just egg-laying robots with tender breast meat they are sentient beings with lives of their own. Scientists have determined that they are smarter than toddlers and exhibit learning and communication behaviors on par with primates.
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In 2004, chickens became the first bird to have their full genome sequenced, uncorking a deluge of scientific inquiry into their physiology, as well as their social behaviors and even their psychological dimensions. No livestock is reared in greater numbers than chickens, and none has been studied in greater detailed.