Can chickens tell us apart!?

[azygous]

Lol this is an interesting post! If you guys dont mind, I also wanna add something in here that im curious about. DO chickens know what gender we are? lol I wanted to give my barred rock pullet a little massage under the wing because i wanted to find a good spot where they liked to be rubbed IF they even like to be rubbed at all. Little did i know she seemed to enjoy it way more than i thought she would. She started to to fluff up --> crouched --->raised up her tail--->and exposed her little booty hole. ever since then shes been more attached to me more than ever *cough cough*. I didnt know what i was doing at first nor knowing why she did that lol i thought i had found her favorite place to be rubbed. Then my dad saw me doing it, and he called me a pervert and i asked why..and he told me that i was "exciting" the chicken. I felt pretty grossed out, but it still didnt stop be from still doing it because it was too cute and funny lol but i should stop. So yeah, can chickens tell our genders apart?...if they even knew.

I like your spunk! But no, chickens are indifferent as to human gender. They do care about their own gender and if there is a rooster around, they will act accordingly. Your hen is attracted to you for the good feelings you give her, the same as for the good things you give her to eat. Chickens know value when they see it!

 

[centrarchid]

Lol this is an interesting post! If you guys dont mind, I also wanna add something in here that im curious about. DO chickens know what gender we are? lol I wanted to give my barred rock pullet a little massage under the wing because i wanted to find a good spot where they liked to be rubbed IF they even like to be rubbed at all. Little did i know she seemed to enjoy it way more than i thought she would. She started to to fluff up --> crouched --->raised up her tail--->and exposed her little booty hole. ever since then shes been more attached to me more than ever *cough cough*. I didnt know what i was doing at first nor knowing why she did that lol i thought i had found her favorite place to be rubbed. Then my dad saw me doing it, and he called me a pervert and i asked why..and he told me that i was "exciting" the chicken. I felt pretty grossed out, but it still didnt stop be from still doing it because it was too cute and funny lol but i should stop. So yeah, can chickens tell our genders apart?...if they even knew.

I am going to say I do not know if they can distinguish human gender. I watch them a lot and determining whether or not they make such a distinction seems doable. I think they have the sensory and mental tools to do it as distinguishing individuals across species boundaries can be pretty tough which they can do. It may come down on the chickens side of the equation, who cares. Being mentally lazy may not be just a human characteristic. Give them a reason to care, then see if they respond differently. They need to be able to distinguish gender of those they are not familiar with for me to say they can do it. They do not have to be correct 100% of time because I can not do that well either. This is especially true when subject is physically, behaviorally and/or with respect to clothing / hairstyle androgynous. Maturity of subject may also be important where juveniles can be really tough. They may not key in on the same characters we look for or are consciences of. I look for relative to head the had and foot size, angle of elbow and variations in pitch during speaking in addition to the standards of face proportions, body shape, size and pitch of voice. Still errors are made. Dogs are better at it than I am because scent is a more reliable indicator.

 

[undine]

I like your spunk!

hahaha waaass thiis supposed to be a pun?! LOL if you know what i mean..spunk..the dirty term...chicken getting excited...yeahhh, i think i went too far now . haha xDD

-julie

 

[chooks4life]

Quote: Some do, I reckon. Overall though I think we're probably a little too 'alien' and variable for the majority of them to regularly perceive gender, but I have noticed some chickens prefer females over males, and the reverse is also sometimes true. Their preference is independent of who feeds and tends them, and also irrespective of the other reasons I'd think an animal might prefer one gender over the other.

I had one rooster (for a short time, before I culled him without breeding him due to this heritable fault) who was sexually attracted to adult male humans. He would aggressively chase his chosen mate around and try to mate with their leg/shoe. He was a bantam mix. White leghorn males from several sources I obtained seemed too often attracted to the human hand, specifically children's, and also underage chickens, among their numerous other faults, and I stopped keeping them. Overall, intensive high production breeds are those most prone to sexual attraction to humans in my experience. These traits I found to be highly heritable.

There are many hens and roosters who respond sexually to one gender or the other of humans. I believe this has a lot to do with the incredibly unnecessary amount of artificial insemination being practiced by large-scale breeders, and in the case of the individual they're probably responding to the gender of human who most often performed the AI services in their family line's history. The same is true of all livestock species where humans are regularly 'meddling' where there is no need... Pigs, goats, sheep, horses, cattle, all poultry... And pet species too. Pandas are another example of a creature quite often bred in captivity through AI. They often don't mate at all when put together. Originally this would have been likely due to a combination of factors, but I think it's increasingly due to instinct for the opposite gender of its species being replaced generation by generation with instinct for the humans, or no instinct at all.

The sexual instinct is one of the strongest and if we train any animal that we are the source of its perceived-as-successful matings, then it will pass this trait on to at least some offspring. An instinct requires confirmation to be reinforced. In one generation, in one lifetime, we can alter a necessary instinct for the worse or better. When we practice AI we confirm to an animal responding sexually to a human that yes, we are its mate. At first the animal doesn't comprehend, but a few generations down the track, if AI is consistently practiced, the majority of its offspring can have a latent attraction to humans. It's just a species survival instinct to identify mates.

We've also bred a high incidence of homosexuality into some strains of sheep (etc) and other animals by constantly restricting each gender to their own kind, not allowing normal fraternization.

For example, such issues (of course) appear more often in breeds where more commonly than not, a male is only allowed to see and interact with females for a short time every year, despite the species' natural social structure/instinct dictating that they spend all their time, all year around, in a mixed sex group. (This isn't an issue for species which naturally segregate outside of mating season into mono-gender groups or singles).

In a recent report, in one strain of a breed of sheep, (White Dorpers? Can't recall at the moment) the incidence of homosexuality ran as high as over 50%; this resulted in grossly swollen testicles, because through homosexual mating, they transmitted an STD (chlamydia, I think) that rendered the males permanently infertile through severe inflammation. (Ewes were very rarely affected for some reason). When I was much younger, I read in an agricultural paper that they'd traced a generation of completely homosexual stud Merino males back to a male bred exclusively from AI for many generations, who lived with other males exclusively. AI should never be used as a rule, I believe. Under exceptional circumstances it's not a problem.
Quote: I've only seen ex-broody hens, who'd completed a full brooding period, "lay" poops that size. Normal laying hens, never. I think perhaps your hens could do with some raspberry leaf added to their feed, or made into a tea for them to drink. It cleanses and tones the female reproductive system. Best wishes.