Do Chickens have Night Vision?

[MatAln97462]

I'm watching mine now at 6am. They seem to do pretty good walking around pecking at things. It is dark but I do have a street lamp fairly close by. I can hardly see them but my leghorn are out finding food.

 

[Crisses]

I'm watching mine now at 6am. They seem to do pretty good walking around pecking at things. It is dark but I do have a street lamp fairly close by. I can hardly see them but my leghorn are out finding food.

Keep in mind that they are ultraviolet sensitive and pre-dawn or during dusk they still might be able to see fairly well simply due to UV rays adding more "light" compared to the light we experience. I imagine once the neighborhood birds sing their predawn songs, they're ALSO seeing more UV light coming up than we see, just like the roos who start crowing 1-2 hrs before dawn...

I also read that their pineal gland can help them know the time of day and seasons even when they're blind. They know what solar-time it is, with or without eyesight.

 

[aldarita]

I'm wondering ... I watch them with an infrared camera at night. They move around a lot and seem to have some degree of night vision. I mean - it's pitch black out there. And they certainly have good aim peckin' at the 2 juveniles! Poor things... the older birds make life miserable for them .... even in the pitch dark of night....

One of the reasons why your chickens are so active during the night is because of your infrared camera, chickens see infrared and ultraviolet, if you turn the camera off you will see them calm down. I have HDTV cameras in my coops but have the infrared turned off. I only have night lights in there just in case they need to move for whatever reason, but mostly they stay quiet (I watch them when I have to treat some of them at night)
This is a very interesting article....

https://mikethechickenvet.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/chicken-vision/

 

[centrarchid]

Birds being observed after dark that are awake are also disturbed. This regardless of light source spectrum.