Thinking Like A Chicken: Domestic Chicken Ethology
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Faunalytics
February 2018

One would think that with over 19 billion chickens worldwide – the most abundant of all domesticated animals – some effort would be made to understand these beings. Yet, unlike many other birds, chickens are “categorized as a commodity, devoid of authenticity as a real animal with an evolutionary history and phylogenetic context.”

Photo by Flickr user musmire

By Lori Marino

Despite the fact that some birds are known to be on par with many mammals in terms of intelligence, emotional sophistication, and social interaction, the general societal view of chickens has essentially remained unchallenged by this new evidence. One would think that with over 19 billion chickens worldwide – the most abundant of all domesticated animals – some effort would be made to understand these beings. Yet, unlike many other birds, chickens are “categorized as a commodity, devoid of authenticity as a real animal with an evolutionary history and phylogenetic context.” Driven by a lack of knowledge, chickens are often mislabelled as lacking many advanced psychological characteristics and hence are typically thought of as animals of low intelligence compared to others.

Lori Marino, a neuroscientist and scholar in the fields of animal intelligence and behavior, set out to examine the available peer-reviewed scientific data on the cognition, emotions, personality and sociality in chickens. Through comparison with other birds and vertebrates, the researcher intended to bring our knowledge on chickens up to speed and highlight areas in need of future research.

Underestimation of chicken capabilities among researchers reflects and contributes to the ongoing public-wide disconnect between chickens as commodities and their individuality. What makes studying chickens particularly special is that, despite their long time domestication, the behavior of chickens is observed to be hardly any different from their wild counterparts. The researchers argues that this is due to the fact that, unlike dogs – the descendants of wolves chosen on their suitability as companions – chickens instead were selected on the basis of physical characteristics such as growth rate and fertility amongst others. Arguably, their brains remained the same as they were not challenged selectively.

Read MORE at Thinking Like A Chicken: Domestic Chicken Ethology

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