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Chickens: an even more thoughtful thing than we previously thought?
- A new study, published in the journal Animal Cognition, has reviewed previous research to find that, despite popular belief, chickens are intelligent and emotional animals with individual personalities.
- "Unlike many other birds, chickens are categorised as a commodity, devoid of authenticity as a real animal. But chickens have the capacity to reason and make logical inferences. They perceive time intervals and may be able to anticipate future events," he said.
- Dr Marino said that the scientific literature on chickens has historically been skewed by dominant perceptions of the bird as "cognitively simple", almost exclusively focusing on their potential as a food source.
I wrote a paper about how our perceptions of livestock has influenced the development of farming and the science around it a while back. The ghost of Descarte still haunts us to this day.
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I have six chickens right now. While I don't disagree that they aren't /that/ smart, I think it's fascinating how little we know about chickens. The survey paper this article links to is a worthwhile read from that perspective.