Definitely. For a few reasons:
1) chicks bred and hatched in mass commercial hatcheries as well as artificially are mostly descended from stock who did not socialize normally or experience a natural environment nor family/flock structure, and in this process many instincts (not just those regarding foraging) are bred out. Many chickens from these environments are counterproductive since they tend to have behavioural and health issues such as cannibalism, chick killing, and eating of deadly substances and objects.
2) your environment will often contain plants and insects and objects that are specifically local only to your area, and a chicken not reared by a locally bred hen may not have any instinct to guide it in these matters. Their instincts can only apply to the environments they have the most recent ancestors from; if that was a cage environment you breed chickens who if free ranged eat nails, toxic plants and insects, and other fatal things. A recent example of how far unnatural rearing has supplanted the often supposed-to-be-permanent instincts is some turkeys I had; female (mine) bred and born free range, never had trouble with chicks; male (borrowed) bred and born caged and in completely separate groups divided by age and gender; the resulting chicks starved for their first five days because they could not recognize anything except crumble as food. I don't feed crumble. I had to make some up, mushy cardboard color stuff, before they would eat. All other chicks from this hen with other fathers had eaten normally, i.e. grains, seeds, insects, plants.
Definitely. The mother's constant warnings and reactions to her environment is imprinted on the chicks in a powerful way. Chicks from the same parents, with some reared by hand and some reared by the mother, show remarkable differences in foraging and survival instincts. Instincts require activating and reinforcing to remain strong, and are often 'put to sleep' or dulled or thwarted or expressed unnaturally when interfered with. For example, hatchery bred roos here are infamous for mating with human's legs and hands; this I believe is due to artificial insemination being the main method of breeding rather than the fall-back method.
Yes, as much as I am a recent convert to the notion that animals have emotion. Now emotions are measurable and undeniable, now animals are becoming accepted as known to also employ reasoning and logic, use tools, etc... Not just the smarter few we are familiar with either.
In my experience, chicks with a mother have an extra zest for life, and artificially raised chicks are always without exception duller and lack the desire to fight for life. Having helped many species of animals in birth and hatching etc, I can verify that affection is necessary to the immune system and that stimulation can save their lives. No affection can kill. Same thing with human babies and failure to thrive syndrome, they had everything they needed for life except affection. They die when it is not present, and I have seen the same thing occur with animals. Happy equals healthy and strong immune systems compared to depressed animals. For the sake of my health, I make sure the animals I eat eggs and flesh from were happy.
Yes, within reason. Another commercially interesting new and very viable industry starting up and showing brilliant promise is that of keeping organic free range meat and layer birds. They do not receive antibiotics, or vaccines, lest they lost their organic certification, and the birds and their meat and eggs are second to none. They are raised in flocks of hundreds and thousands, in amazing health, with miniscule losses compared to their unfortunate non-organic counterparts. There is just no worth in that industry, it's a totally false economy that helps drive both human and animal disease industry profiteers.
That's the 'within reason' part right there... In my experience it costs far less, an absolute minimum, to raise chicks with their mothers, whereas artificial brooding and rearing is time, labor and financially expensive. I don't know why some people believe otherwise, but since I raise mine freerange and on natural foods, I guess it would be different for those trying to do the same in an artificial setup, i.e. permanently caged birds. That could get expensive. I also do not feed medicated feed or vaccinate, so that helps. I don't lose anywhere near the amount of birds that those who use those so-called safeguards lose. I've never lost a single bird to cocci, never even seen it. Raw garlic is the death of that disease. I give it to newly hatched chicks in their first feed and never have sick chicks. Wonderful stuff!
