DYK? Consider These Amazing Facts About Chickens

Chickens are intelligent, curious, and social animals. So if you’re ever called a “bird brain,” you should consider it a compliment!

In honor of National Chicken Month, we’re sharing fun facts that you may not know about these remarkable birds.

And you can help us make National Chicken Month about helping chickens! All donations through September 30 will be matched dollar-for-dollar, in honor of Compassion Over Killing’s Tyson Foods investigation, that has prompted unprecedented cruelty charges and convictions.

• Hens carefully build their nests and turn their eggs several times an hour, clucking to their babies who chirp in response.
• Chickens have communications skills on par with primates. They use sophisticated signals to convey intentions, they can solve complex problems, and they can be deceptive and cunning!
• Chickens show empathy for one another. Mother hens have been found to show signs of stress when they see their chicks becoming distressed.
• Chickens are smarter than human toddlers. These smart birds are capable of mathematical reasoning, self-control, planning ahead, transitive inference (if A>B and B>C, then A>C), and more.
• Chickens dream. Like humans, dogs and cats, and other animals, chickens experience REM sleep.

Sadly, more than 8 billion chickens are raised and killed for food each year in the US, most of them suffering their entire short lives on factory farms.

While we can’t know for sure what chickens are dreaming about, you can help us make the dream of a kinder world for chickens and all animals a reality.  Visit TryVeg.com for delicious vegan recipes and much more.

Photo: COK’s Jonathan Rosenberry