Cunning as a fox, clever as a monkey, talkative as a magpie… Yes, animals are intelligent. That’s why 5 February is World Animal Intelligence Day. The chicken will surprise you!
Cognitively speaking, the hen belongs to a rather brilliant class of birds. For example, Gabonese grey parrots are able to count and classify objects according to their colour and shape.
Ethologists have recently discovered that chickens are smart and have communication skills similar to those of some primates. They take their experience into account when making decisions. They have arithmetic skills, emotions and even personality.
Lori Marino, an animal behaviourist, explained that chickens “are perceived as lacking most of the psychological characteristics we recognise in other intelligent animals and are generally considered to have low intelligence compared to other animals. The very idea of chicken psychology is strange to most people.
First of all, chickens have number sense, basic arithmetic skills and can distinguish quantities. They also have visual and spatial abilities: when it comes to pecking in groups, they recognise their place in the order by observation. Hens learn from each other and reason by deduction.
Hens perceive time intervals and anticipate future events. They make decisions based on what is best for them.
As described earlier in our “Did you know” article, communication in hens is also relatively complex, as they are said to use at least 24 different vocalizations.
Chickens have both positive and negative emotions. They also have a form of empathy called emotional contagion. They have their own personality and their behaviour is sophisticated. Mother hens have typical maternal traits. In fact, aren’t we talking about a mother hen?
Source: Animal cognition, Lori Marino, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-016-1064-4
