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Animal minds: Chickens, researchers say, are smarter than we think

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rooster?/Farm Sanctuary

Probably. The belief that birds must be less intelligent than mammals was based on Darwinism, not observation. From ScienceDaily:

Chickens are not as clueless or “bird-brained” as people believe them to be. They have distinct personalities and can outmaneuver one another. They know their place in the pecking order, and can reason by deduction, which is an ability that humans develop by the age of seven. Chicken intelligence is therefore unnecessarily underestimated and overshadowed by other avian groups. So says Lori Marino, senior scientist for The Someone Project, a joint venture of Farm Sanctuary and the Kimmela Center in the USA, who reviewed the latest research about the psychology, behavior and emotions of the world’s most abundant domestic animal. Her review is published in Springer’s journal Animal Cognition. Paper. (public access) – Lori Marino. Thinking chickens: a review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken. Animal Cognition, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s10071-016-1064-4 More.

If we attribute human characteristics to chickens, their behaviour tends to cause them to appear stupid. But that is our mistake.

That said, no chicken ever thought, spoke, or wrote about what being a chicken feels like. Only humans can try to understand chickens in that sense.

See also: The intelligence of the chicken “startles”?

Furry, feathery, and finny animals speak their minds

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