Scientists Say Chickens Are Intelligent, Caring and Complex

Posted on January 5, 2017

Chickens are the world's most abundant domestic animal. There are tens of billions of them worldwide. Chickens are not known for being smart but scientists say they definitely are not the clueless "bird brains" some people think they are. Researchers says chickens have distinct personalities. They also say chickens are behaviorally, cognitively and emotionally complex individuals.

Lori Marino, senior scientist for The Someone Project, a joint venture of Farm Sanctuary and the Kimmela Center in the USA, says in a statement, "They are perceived as lacking most of the psychological characteristics we recognize in other intelligent animals and are typically thought of as possessing a low level of intelligence compared with other animals. The very idea of chicken psychology is strange to most people."

Here are some of the reasons scientists think chickens are smart birds:

A research paper on the study was published here in the journal Animal Cognition.



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