Mother hen and chicks. Image: Compassion/Gordon Ratcliffe

Baby chicks of only 3 or 4 days old can add and subtract. A  news article today reports that researchers tested youngsters to see if they could work out different quantities of small plastic balls.

In natural conditions, chicks and hens would live in small groups. It seems likely that their amazing ability to count at such a young age is important to help them survive.

Other research has found that some non-human primates, monkeys and dogs can count too and that “monkeys perform approximate mental addition in a manner that is remarkably similar to the performance of the college students”!