- Chickens can distinguish between more than 100 faces of their own species. Looks like elephants aren’t the only ones who have a great memory.
- Chickens perform complex communication where calls have specific meanings. They perform over 30 types of vocalisation that we are aware of with meanings varying from calling youngsters, alarm calls, and alerting others to the whereabouts of food.
- Chickens know who’s boss—they form complex social structures known as “pecking orders,” and every chicken knows his or her place on the social ladder.
- Chickens are able to comprehend that when an object is taken away and hidden from them, it still exists. Young human children are unable to understand this.
- Hens are extremely affectionate and caring mothers. In Christian writings, Jesus is said to have used the love of a hen for her brood to express God’s love for humans. In Ancient Rome, saying ‘you were raised by a hen’ was a compliment.
- Chickens can’t taste sweetness in foods however they can detect salt, and most choose to avoid it.
- The chicken is the closest living relative to the great Tyrannosaurus-Rex.
- Who likes to sunbathe? Apparently everyone—humans, cats, dogs, and chickens too! You can’t blame them, and they don’t even need sunscreen.
- Chickens are real sleeping beauties—they experience rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which means they dream just like we do.
- Chickens have pain receptors that give them the ability to feel pain and distress. Put yourself in the shoes (or the feathers) of a battery hen—or 452 million of them, which is how many are used for their eggs each year.
- Hens defend their young from predators. Looks like calling someone a “chicken” is actually a compliment.
- Who needs pepper spray? Chickens have more than 30 types of vocalizationsto distinguish between threats.
- Chickens are just like human mothers who talk to their babies in the womb—a mother hen begins to teach calls to her chicks before they even hatch.
- Chickens have very sophisticated social behaviour with a dominance hierarchy where higher individuals dominate subordinate individuals. This is where the term pecking order comes from!
- The dominant male (cockerel) protects the females (hens) and they choose to feed close to him for safety.
- Chickens aren't completely flightless. They can get airborne enough to make it over a fence or into a tree.
- The chicken can travel up to nine miles per hour.
- The chicken was the first bird to have its genome sequenced, in 2004.
- In Gainesville, Georgia, the chicken capital of the world, it is illegal to eat chicken with a fork.