Chicken Research

[Bartonsfinest]

Im doing research on a couple topics all chicken and mental health related, I would love to here some options or personal experience with these follow topics ;

• Do you think chickens could help heal some of their owners depression, anxiety?
• Could chickens become emotional support animals like a dog or cat?
• What would be some pros and cons of having a chicken as your emotional support animals?

It would be AWESOME if someone has some personal experience about these topics or anything close to these topics. I can give my personal email address out of you don't want to share your story in the thread.

 

[DLA]

I think chickens can be very rewarding because depression and anxiety often involves a person dwelling a lot on their own negative feelings and situations and getting stuck in that rut. Having chickens to take care of and possibly the reward of getting eggs, not to mention the joys of watching 'chicken tv' could certainly help as a positive factor in a persons life. It has helped me. That being said they're not an animal that is reliably emotionally interactive with people like most cats or dogs and they're not an animal that is known for being hugged, snuggled and kissed (salmonella). Some live longer but most don't usually live as long as the typical dog or cat so dealing with a pet death might be more difficult for someone with mental health issues. Chickens can be very clever sometimes, they can also be very stupid. I think we relate to dogs and cats because they often sense and respond to our emotional state. I have been around chickens off and on my whole life and I can't honestly say I've ever met a chicken that could do that. Oh they recognize you and react to you but it's not the same. When my cats (or dogs I've had in the past) look at me you can feel the connection and even 'love'. We can project feelings on any pet and we often do, and that is totally fine. Perhaps chickens just being the way they are might be helpful for some people. I saw a documentary from England where college students were working with chickens seeing if they could train them to do things and they had some success but I don't think you could ever expect a chicken to reach the same level as a cat or dog. Meaning that if someone was having a severe anxiety attack emotional support dogs and cats can recognize and respond to that with certain learned or trained behaviors where a chicken could not. My opinion is that chickens might be helpful for some people in certain situations but not on the same of level of acceptance as cats or dogs as recognized emotional support animals.

 

[ssferret]

I was going to write an article about my own experiences on how my chickens helped me with my depression. I'm glad I searched to see if there were any articles already on that subject or if someone was already researching it. I don't feel that it's right for me to write something when I know someone else thought of it first.

With that said I have no problems with you picking my brain if you want to. Just let me know. For now I'll just give you abridged answers to your above questions.

1) Most definitely
2) Yes for me but in a different way. It has to do with species specific behavior. And as you know there are people who consider them as just "animals."
3) I prefer to give whole lists first. It helps with my bad memory.

 

[NagemTX]

Yes to point number one. Because they have helped me.

Yes.

Will have to think on this point more.