Are Some breeds smarter?

[BansheeWildRose]

Are some chickens or chicken breeds more intelligent than others? My buff orphington, Gabrielle, seems to be my smartest chicken, she's quick at figuring things out and she also is the most attached to me.. while one copper Maran is really ..well dense.

 

[diamondsilkies]

I did an experiment on this a while back. I cut out a bunch of shapes from construction paper, and then trained them to recognize and peck the blue circle. I gave them each an hour of training before testing them. Both my ameraucanas got it right every time, whereas most of the other breeds got around 50-80% right.

 

[BansheeWildRose]

Fascinating! I might need to try this.

 

[varidgerunner]

Most any "breed" of animal is dumbed down quite a bit for domestication purposes. Makes it easier to keep confined, at higher stocking densities, etc. The closer you get to the wild type, often the animals are smarter. American Games are the closest thing we have to the wild type, but haven't been selected quite as much for close human interaction compared to the oriental games, which are close to this wild type, yet with a little extra "biddability" bred in. A comparison can be made to dogs. A timberwolf is very smart, but not as biddable as a border collie or german shepherd. Breeds that have been selected solely on the presence of genetic defects, like boxers or silkies, can be extremely stupid.We don't really have a dog breed for comparison that is bred for extremely high stocking density, rapid growth, and high meat production, but it is very likely that it would operate on the conish-broiler scale of what most people perceive as "intelligence" in animals.

 

[sylviethecochin]

There's also the common mistake of confusing "placidity" with "stupidity."

Games are quick to react and perceive changes in their environment, which gives them a natural advantage in the learning/adaptation game, but my cochin/OEGB cross is best at logical thinking. She figured out that she could jump up into my face and get me to drop the feed after one occurrence of her fluttering down from above by accident. And she's not a tame bird. She also remembers the faces of our cats (something I usually can't do--they're all three grey tabbies) and consistently attacks the youngest, who lunged at her chicks when she was a kitten.

 

[varidgerunner]

Get some oriental games, and then come back and speak with us about problem solving capabilities. If they had raccoon hands there wouldn't be a pen that would hold them. Have had more than one, hatched wild in the woods, decide that hitching a ride on a persons shoulder might be a good way to get food. They can be the wildest and at the same time the tamest of breeds, having been bred for centuries for both close human contact, and near feral rearing conditions.

I have used them as riding partners. Very easy to see how the early chicken domesticators arrived at the decision to perch a rooster on the mast of their raft. They have a language, and can tell you things. If you cover enough miles with a chicken looking out of the dash, you learn to hear when a light is turning red, or when a car is pulling out of a parking lot.

Those first chickens were game chickens, that being the reason chickens were domesticated. No need to domesticate a stringy 4 pound jungle bird that laid 20 eggs a year for eggs and meat when you lived in jungles teaming with fruit, amidst oceans teaming with fish, and every rock teaming with sea bird nests. They were ornaments, pets. lookouts, and gambling opportunities in the beginning. Their ability to display endearing qualities to their keepers, as well as their ability to best their opponents have been closely tied to their "smarts" for many centuries. Every thing since that time, related to chicken rearing for meat and egg production, has been a devolution in chicken intellect.

 

[sylviethecochin]

Get some oriental games, and then come back and speak with us about problem solving capabilities. If they had raccoon hands there wouldn't be a pen that would hold them. Have had more than one, hatched wild in the woods, decide that hitching a ride on a persons shoulder might be a good way to get food. They can be the wildest and at the same time the tamest of breeds, having been bred for centuries for both close human contact, and near feral rearing conditions.

I have used them as riding partners. Very easy to see how the early chicken domesticators arrived at the decision to perch a rooster on the mast of their raft. They have a language, and can tell you things. If you cover enough miles with a chicken looking out of the dash, you learn to hear when a light is turning red, or when a car is pulling out of a parking lot.

Those first chickens were game chickens, that being the reason chickens were domesticated. No need to domesticate a stringy 4 pound jungle bird that laid 20 eggs a year for eggs and meat when you lived in jungles teaming with fruit, amidst oceans teaming with fish, and every rock teaming with sea bird nests. They were ornaments, pets. lookouts, and gambling opportunities in the beginning. Their ability to display endearing qualities to their keepers, as well as their ability to best their opponents have been closely tied to their "smarts" for many centuries. Every thing since that time, related to chicken rearing for meat and egg production, has been a devolution in chicken intellect.

I said games had a natural advantage. I just wanted to add that just because other types of chickens can be slow thinkers doesn't mean that they're stupid.

 

[BYCforlife]

So I wonder if we let our children out into the wild would they eventually become smarter?

 

[solidsnake]

I have a RIR chick and I can tell she isn't as bright as my BR. She thinks she can go through transparent plastic while my BR knows that it's solid and jumps over it. You'd think she'd have figured it out by now. She hasn't.

 

[FlyWheel]

My Cuckoo Marans used to help my son with his geometry homework.





























(Just kidding......I don't have a son )