are chickens color blind?

[fushalilly]

?

 

[bkterry]

good question...ive wondered the same???

 

[Gazinga]

me too, great question, cant wait to hear the answers

 

[rooster-red]

Nope.

Just ask any lady who has worn red nail polish or red shoes into a run full of chickens! OUCH!

 

[jnjross]

rr's right they LOVE red things

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Nope, birds actually have wonderful vision and some species can even see colors humans cannot. However, while chickens have wonderful color vision, they cannot see well, if at all, in the dark.

Some birds can actually see ultraviolet and several species have interesting patterns when put under an ultraviolet light. That discovery led to a whole new way of looking at things. It's interesting to think that another animal (specifically a bird) is capable of seeing MORE colors than a human! We can see such a large range of colors, compared to other animals such as dogs and cats.

However, it is interesting to note that even dogs and cats are not completely colorblind. They do not see in JUST black and white, but rather it is believed cats see in different hues of blue and dogs, along with horses, see in colors ranging from yellows, blues, and greens.

 

[Alaskan]

The the question is...what colors do they see?

Only black, white, and red?

 

[rooster-red]

I haven't been able to get them to tell me yet, but I do know they know the difference between the yellow layer feed bag and the white scratch feed bag, they get much more excited seeing the scratch bag.

They know the difference between a red tail hawk and a crow at great distances too.

They know the difference between my Wifes gray car and my light blue one, even though they are the same model of car, they get very excited when I pull into the yard, not at all when my Wife does.

So I guess we can add gray, light blue and yellow to the list.

 

[Alaskan]

OK, I found this so interesting that I searched and searched and finally got a great article.

Take home message was:

"Bennett et al. (1994) emphasise that bird and human
perception of colour differs. In all three experiments reported
in the present study, the chicks noticed and learnt colour
differences barely visible to a human"

The entire, very good but very scientific (so not a quick brainless read), is at:
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/21/2951.pdf

I also wanted to say..

rooster-red,
great observations! Your comments spurred me on to find the article!