Preface
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Chickens are sentient, are capable of complex mental processes, and lead rich cognitive, emotional, and psychological lives.
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| Key Points | 2 |
| Counterclaims | 1 |
| Advocacy Notes | 0 |
| Footnotes | 10 |
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Summary
A concise summary of the briefing (see below for citations).
Sentience, the capacity to experience pain and emotions, is the criterion for determining moral consideration for living beings. This attribute, rather than intelligence, establishes worthiness for moral consideration.
Chickens are emotionally and behaviorally complex. Lori Marino’s research shows chickens experience emotions, have episodic memory, self-control, reasoning, and self-awareness. They can perform simple math and have distinct personalities.
Arguments about brain size and cognitive inferiority are misguided. Leslie J Rogers and other researchers find that chickens’ cognitive abilities can rival those of primates, challenging assumptions about brain size and intelligence.
Context
Places this topic in its larger context.
Sentience is the capacity to feel pain and experience emotions. It is significant because it serves as the criterion for determining whether living beings deserve moral consideration.
While sentient beings have differing levels of intelligence, these differences in intelligence are not morally relevant, as discussed in our briefing on animal rights.
Key Points
This section provides talking points.
Chickens lead complex emotional lives, are behaviorally sophisticated, and have distinct personalities.
In the paper “Thinking chickens: a review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken,” Lori Marino examined 266 research articles in 16 peer-reviewed journals and found that…1
- Chickens can experience happiness, boredom, and frustration.
- Chickens possess the capacity for episodic memory, which provides “evidence for an autobiographical sense of self in the past, present, and future.”
- Chickens exhibit self-control, a capacity not found in humans until age four and is associated with self-awareness and autonomy—the ability to think about and choose future outcomes.
- Chickens are capable of reasoning and logical inference.
- Chickens are as “emotionally and socially complex as most other birds and mammals in many areas.”
- Chickens can perform simple math and understand the ordinality of numbers.
- Chickens have self-awareness—”a subjective awareness of one’s identity, one’s body, and one’s thoughts through time, distinguished from others.”
- Chickens are capable of a wide range of emotions, including happiness, fear, anxiety, boredom, and frustration.
- Chickens “are behaviorally sophisticated, discriminating among individuals, exhibiting Machiavellian-like social interactions, and learning socially in complex ways that are similar to humans.”
- Chickens “have distinct personalities, just like all animals who are cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally complex individuals.”
Chickens have a sense of the future, can anticipate future events, and delay gratification.
Counterclaims
Responses to some yes but retorts.
Claim: Chickens are dumb—they have small brains.
Note: Differences in intelligence between humans and other animals are not morally relevant, as discussed in our briefing on animal rights.
Animal neurobiologist Leslie J Rogers, in comparing chickens to mammals, states that “recent findings challenge assumptions that have been made about brain size and the superiority of the mammalian line of evolution.”5
Animal neurobiologist Leslie J Rogers, in her book on the brain functions of chickens, says that “the cognitive abilities of some avian species may actually rival those of primates,”6
According to a 29-author research paper on avian brains published in a neuroscience journal, “many birds have cognitive proficiencies that are quite sophisticated, and some birds and mammals have cognitive proficiencies that clearly exceed all other birds or mammals.”7
Supplementary Info
Additional information that may prove useful.
General Information
- Hens do not need roosters to produce eggs. Hens will lay eggs whether or not a rooster is present. However, without a rooster, the eggs will be unfertilized and will not develop into chicks.
Further Study
Sources providing a deeper understanding of the topic or related topics.
Other Resources
This Youtube video titled “Chicken Society at Hens of the Hills,” gives you a fascinating glimpse into the live of some rescue chickens, highlighting their sentience and social behaviors.8
This sentient article asks and answers “Are Chickens Smart?“9
The Marino article referenced above is open access: “Thinking Chickens: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in the Domestic Chicken.” explores the cognitive, emotional, and social complexity of domestic chickens, showing that they possess advanced sensory abilities, episodic memory, self-control, and other sophisticated behaviors.10
Advocacy Resources
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Additional media and advocacy resources are on the way, though not every briefing will feature every type of media.
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Advocacy Notes
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Footnotes
Our sources, with links back to where they’re used.
- Marino, Lori. “Thinking Chickens: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in the Domestic Chicken.” Animal Cognition 20, no. 2 (2017): 127–47. ↩︎
- Jennifer ViegasDiscovery News. “Chickens Worry about the Future. July 15, 2005. ↩︎
- Marino, Lori. “Thinking Chickens: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in the Domestic Chicken.” Animal Cognition20, no. 2 (2017): 127–47. ↩︎
- Abeyesinghe, S. M., C. J. Nicol, S. J. Hartnell, and C. M. Wathes. “Can Domestic Fowl, Gallus Gallus Domesticus, Show Self-Control?” Animal Behaviour 70, no. 1 (July 1, 2005): 1–11 ↩︎
- Rogers, Lesley J. The Development of Brain and Behaviour in the Chicken. CAB International, 1995. 214 ↩︎
- Rogers, Lesley J. The Development of Brain and Behaviour in the Chicken. CAB International, 1995. 214 ↩︎
- Jarvis, Erich D., Onur Güntürkün, Laura Bruce, András Csillag, Harvey Karten, Wayne Kuenzel, Loreta Medina, et al. “Avian Brains and a New Understanding of Vertebrate Brain Evolution.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6, no. 2 (February 2005): 9. ↩︎
- Sentient. “Chicken Society at Hens of the Hills.” YouTube, 27 Mar. 2020, youtu.be/Vmh-8oz27nc?si=DpzrDbYaEGsm7yWw. Accessed 5 July 2024. ↩︎
- Mishler, Jennifer. “Are Chickens Smart? Do Chickens Have Feelings?” Sentient Media, 2 Jan. 2017, sentientmedia.org/are-chickens-smart/. ↩︎
- Marino, Lori. “Thinking Chickens: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior in the Domestic Chicken.” Animal Cognition 20, no. 2 (2017): 127–47. ↩︎
