The hens and chickens that we farm are descended from the jungle fowl of south-east Asia. Jungle fowl and domestic chickens make over 30 different calls, which they use to alert their group members to a threat or to food, for example. Chicks start communicating with their mother hen while they are still in the egg and cockerels make a “food call” to let the hens know that food has been found.
Cockerels tell the hens in their group about tasty food. Image: Compassion/Xiao Shibai
Scientists used to think that only a few mammal species could really understand the meaning of different calls and grunts. Now, research is showing that hens and chickens have a more advanced use and understanding of language than scientists expected.
Recordings of cockerels’ food calls were played back to hens, either straight after they had received three corn kernels to eat, or after they had not received anything to eat.
In response to these recorded calls, the hens only went to look for food if they had not eaten any corn. The hens who weren’t hungry ignored the calls! They didn’t just go and search for the food as an automatic response to the call.
This shows that they understood that what the call meant and could make an intelligent response to it.
Other researchers found that hens were prepared to wait longer before eating a tasty treat, if they knew that waiting for longer would mean they received a bigger number of tasty treats.
Hens and chickens are no ‘bird brains’!
Tags: Compassion in World Farming, Natural behaviour, sentience
Having had hens for a number of years I learned their language, which is indeed very varied. I could use it myself and they responded just as if I were a hen myself. They are also very intelligent, if you gauge this by the speed at which a creature learns anything new.
Hi Barbara
We’re doing a documentary about chicken communication, is this a rare thing you do or are lots of people able to do this?
Could you give me a call if you read this please, 0141 422 7835