Can Chickens Taste their food?

[kinnip]

It's pretty obvious they taste, but what about flavour? How's their sense of smell? Humans taste salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. The heat of peppers is not a taste, it's due to the breaking of a chemical chain on the tongue. Flavour, on the other hand, is completely dependent on our sense of smell. Do chickens sense flavour or just taste?

 

[my1stchicks]

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I didn't know that, I thought they were just wiping their mouths. I'll pay more attention now.

 

[brandywine]

Most birds, including chickens, are "microsmic" -- just like humans. That means that we have a very poorly-developed sense of smell when compared to a macrosmic animal, such as a dog or rat -- an animal that lives and dies by its superior nose and vomeronasal senses. This has to do with the size and complexity of our olfactory epithelia, as well as the amount of brain devoted to processing these sensory inputs.

Chickens' ability to to taste and smell should be roughly similar to our own. Maybe a little bit better or worse, but same basic league. A turkey buzzard or a salmon puts both of our species to shame.

They just may not agree with most of us humans about what tastes or smells good.

I mean, while it'd be comforting for me to believe it, it's not actually true that someone who loves the taste of kidney pie or braised tripe or durian has "no sense of taste."

Nor does the fact that an Indonesian or Guatamalan weaned on hot peppers can happily eat something that would make me burst into flames mean that he can't taste the hot. He just likes it that way!

 

[onthespot]

I put some little ice chips on the board for my chickens yesterday and they seemed puzzled by the lack of taste, kept rolling it around in their beak, dropping it, looking at it, pick it back up, hold it, then... aw what the heck, swallow it.

 

[JennsPeeps]

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Sounds like a chicken - when in doubt, eat it.

 

[silkiechicken]

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Tripe and durian are oh so delicious! mmmm. Makes me drool. So what if the first is cow internals and the second smells like manure? They are yummy!

 

[jjthink]

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Hen Annie goes crazy for little ice chips when she's overheated. She LOVES them. BJ roo just stares at them, not enthralled in the least!
JJ

 

[chickenannie]

OK, when I'm at a cocktail party and I forget and start talking about chickens' taste buds -- somebody please shoot me.

 

[JennsPeeps]

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Does everything really taste like chicken??

 

[silkiechicken]

I bet everything tasteless tastes like store bought chicken, since store bought chicken is salty and bland, to which tasteless things are salted and are still bland.