I once adopted a chicken named Gloria who had outwitted a neighborhood of angry gardeners (chickens love scratching up plants) and animal control officers for almost a year. After joining my backyard flock, she lived in relative luxury for the rest of her days, enjoying a chicken-size swing set, herb-scented dust baths and daily treats.
It’s a far cluck from most chickens’ lives. On any given day, billions of chickens live and die without these small comforts because the law treats them as “bird brains.” Although most chicken owners will tell you that chickens, like people, can range in intelligence from Einstein to Zoolander, many studies show that as a species, they’re capable of solving complex problems and feeling emotions. In fact, a 2018 review of the scientific data on chickens concluded that they’re “behaviorally and cognitively sophisticated.”
Outside of a lab setting, the increased popularity of pet chickens like Gloria has others rethinking the “bird brain” stereotype that helps some people rationalize industrial farming. Journalist Tove Danovich’s own backyard flock inspired her to write Under the Henfluence, a deep dive into chickens and the people who know them best—from hatchery owners to chicken rescuers to chicken trainers.
At the start of her book, she thinks she’ll replace her chickens when their egg laying slows down, as happens on most farms. By the end, though, she’s adopted hens rescued from a battery cage farm—where egg laying hens live short lives in tiny cages—and stopped eating poultry. It turns out that living with chickens gives people a newfound appreciation for the birds. To know chickens is to love them. Here’s some of what she learned.
Chickens come in all shapes, sizes and colors
More than 1,600 chicken breeds are recognized worldwide. They range from palm-size to baby-size with an array of feather colors, textures and shapes, and they can lay a rainbow of egg colors. Some lay once or twice a week, while others lay almost daily. (White grocery store eggs are most often from white leghorn hens, who have been bred to lay an unsustainable 300-plus eggs a year. This would drastically shorten their lives if they weren’t culled at a little less than 2 years old.)
Chickens have at least 24 distinct vocalizations, and they can combine those noises to make different “words,” including different alarm calls for land and air predators.
Descended from the wild red jungle fowl, chickens have been domesticated for such traits for thousands of years. But Danovich visited a pocket of protected wild chickens in Georgia, who live in groups and have an observable “chicken telegraph system,” in which each group’s rooster passes warnings of loose dogs or hawks around town. These chickens are small and gangly, with grey legs, and they’ve evolved to roost in trees, fly over roads (avoiding the inevitable jokes) and lay eggs on rooftops.
There’s even a robust bird show culture with breed standards, which Danovich discovered brings together people of all backgrounds to show perfectly primped birds. She says chickens are the great equalizer: Once they’re familiar with the birds, millionaires and homesteaders, city dwellers and country folks alike suddenly find themselves garbed in chicken-print clothes and buying chicken treats and toys.
Chickens form close bonds
My silkie chickens Karen and Gretchen were inseparable, and they once co-parented chicks, taking turns sitting on the eggs and corralling the resulting peeps. The chicks often rode on Karen’s back or tucked themselves under Gretchen’s wing, and they followed their moms’ lead even after they were full grown. That’s likely because chicks talk to their moms even before they hatch, peeping and purring in the shell to let her know if they’re cold or comfortable.
Once they hatch, chicks learn from mom when and where to hide from predators and what’s OK to eat and drink. A 2011 study showed that chickens’ heart rates and distress vocalizations increased when their chicks were subjected to puffs of air, even when their chicks made no distress noises. And chickens raised by other chickens (rather than in a hatchery setting) are less fearful, kinder to each other and show fewer stress behaviors such as feather picking.
On the romance front, roosters use a display called “tidbitting” to show hens where to find food. The hens remember which roosters tidbit the most often and mate with them more frequently. In short, chickens have social ties and, like chimpanzees, are social learners who watch and emulate one another. Danovich’s factory farm rescues initially had no idea how to “be chickens,” but after several months, they learned to sing an “egg song” (a unique call after laying) along with the rest of the flock.
Chickens talk and recognize each other (and us)
Chickens have at least 24 distinct vocalizations, and they can combine those noises to make different “words,” including different alarm calls for land and air predators and a series of unique cluck patterns—a name, if you will—for their owners. Roosters can recognize themselves in a mirror, a milestone human babies only reach around 18 months old. Chickens can also recognize each other and remember each other’s place in the pecking order.
Danovich first noticed these distinct vocalizations when one of her chicks died. “Chickens have this call that they do when they are babies especially; usually they use it to call their mother. I call it the ‘lost chick’ call in the book, and I realized that [the remaining chicks] were doing a version of that call on and off throughout the day,” she says.
Danovich was upset, but she was surprised to realize that the chicks were equally upset—and then surprised she was surprised. “These are flock animals that have a hierarchy. They’re bonded, they have relationships with each other and yet we don’t act like they matter to each other at all.”
Chickens can sense time, recognize colors and do math
If I don’t give my chickens treats at exactly 6:30 p.m., they’ll line up by the window and stare at me until I do. Studies support my anecdotal observations of chickens’ timekeeping skills: Hens trained to peck a computer six minutes after they were shown a symbol on the screen consistently pecked the screen 6 to 7.5 minutes after being shown the symbol.
Another test showed 5-day-old chicks could find a target based on its numerical place in a series of 10. And in one clicker-training program, chickens were successfully taught to peck at one of four colors, even when the colors changed. When the target color was removed, they waited to peck.
When Danovich visited a chicken training camp, the instructor led an activity that showed why humans may underestimate chicken intelligence: She tried to “train” one of the camp attendees to do a simple task using a clicker. The person couldn’t grasp the task.
Considering adopting backyard chickens? Learn More
“It’s so easy to think, ‘Oh, these chickens just aren’t very smart. That’s why it’s so hard to get them to do this simple activity,’” says Danovich. “But communication is huge in getting anyone to do even the simplest tasks.” Humans and hens simply don’t speak the same language.
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Help protect farm animals
Too many farm animals still suffer terribly as they’re crammed into cages and crates so small and tight they can’t even turn around. That’s why we rejoiced when, in May 2023, the Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12. It’s the nation’s strongest farm animal protection law, and we fought tirelessly to put it in place.
Prop 12 prohibits the sale in California of products from intensively confined farm animals, including eggs from laying hens and meat from mother pigs. Our work didn’t end with the court’s decision. We’re defending Prop 12 and related laws from attacks in the federal farm bill, a multi-year package that governs food production and agriculture policies. The pending House bill includes language to block provisions in Prop 12 and similar laws on the humane treatment of animals.
The proposed language is the result of lobbying by interest groups representing producers who want to continue raising pigs in cruel and extreme confinement. Thousands of other farmers—including many who are meeting consumer demand for more humanely raised products—have written to Congress opposing such language.
The science is clear that movement and the expression of natural behavior is important for farm animals, just as it is for humans and other species.
Ask your federal legislators to oppose farm bill language seeking to reverse much of Prop 12 and other state animal protection laws. Take Action
HSVMA presents "What the Cluck? Backyard Poultry Medicine" Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. Watch the Webinar
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This was written and produced by the team behind All Animals, our award-winning magazine. Each issue is packed with inspiring stories about how we are changing the world for animals together.
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