Do Chickens Mourn ?

[BarredBuff]

Remarks removed by Staff...



No wonder the three of us live on SuficientSelf!

 

[mulewagon]

Quote:
Mine, too... but of course those were excess roosters, and I think the hens would have danced a jig on top of the freezer if they'd known what was in there!

Now we're down to a reasonable number. I notice that when I have to handle a rooster at night, the hens perched on either side peck my hands! It's odd, but they seem protective of their boy...

 

[BarredBuff]

I forgot to add. My first group ate a dead chicken.

It was one of their sisters.

 

[bald egg]

I also was wondering if they mourn. I have a small mixed flock of 9. One roo and 8 hens. Last Tuesday I came home from work and found one of my girls dead in the corner of the run. The rest of the flock was milling about in a confused state just cooing in a mournful tone. The weather here in Kansas has been rather cold, but the food consumption has greatly decreased since 'Omlete' went to the big coop in the sky. This is my first winter with chickens and thought that the cold would bring greater appetites as more fuel would be needed to generate heat. But the oppisite has occured. They have eaten much less in the last week then any time since they were chicks. I keep saying this isn't Disney, this is the real world and they are just dumb birds that really don't care for one another. But then again why won't they eat? I did fill the feeder tonite and they ate more in the last 24 hours then they have in the past week. Do they mourn?? I really don't know.

 

[teach1rusl]

Many animals mourn the loss of one of their kind. I've seen it with dogs, cats, and chickens, and have read about these behaviors in horses, canadian geese, and of course elephants. Gritsar...your story about lil bit and lilith was SO touching...

 

[gritsar]

Do they mourn in the human sense of the word? Probably not. As I said, they have enough brain matter to know that something is not right in their world. Consider for a moment - You are a creature that is lives in constant fear of predators. You don't know what predators are really, you just have an instinct that tells you to fear them. You've sat on the roost by the same other creature of your kind each night since you were a chick. Suddenly that other creature is gone. Your world has changed and even animals with only a few brain cells to rub together have to sense that.

Call it anthropomorphism if you want. I consider it human arrogance to say that animals can't have emotions.

I have a meatie pullet in one coop that's a few fries short of a happy meal, even for a meatie. She's partially blind and just seems to be in her own world most of the time. She doesn't interact with the other chickens. Yet let me take all the other birds out of the coop and leave her in there alone. She goes ballistic. She hollers for them. She searches for them. A big part of her "family" or not, she wants to be with them.

Bald Egg, I am sorry for your loss as well.

 

[speckledhen]

The OP was asking a serious question and did not deserve ridicule from anyone-that is not the way we do things here on BYC. Answer the question or go elsewhere, but don't make fun of anyone asking questions.

I think that some who don't really spend any time with their birds, observing them and communing with them, miss quite a lot. I won't elaborate since I have had to play referee here already. Be kind to our members, please.

 

[johny]

Sorry nana,
No ridicule.
But I don't think they have the capacity for that emotion.
I didn't kill my roosters in front of the hens but the hens seemed no different the next day when I went in to feed them. No fear of me and no evident mourning over missing birds.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Two times I have witnessed mourning in my chickens:

1. when I took their rooster away (their first roo) and gave him to the feed store for them to sell
2. when I took away a lot of chickens for sale at auction.

Both times you COULD HAVE HEARD A PIN DROP in the run when I returned from the car trips. Everyone was standing nearly still and quiet. The rest of the day, there was hardly a word between hens. Everyone looked dejected.

 

[bburn]

Um....just stopping by to add my two cents worth.

I have a LF Cochin, Harry. He has been at the bottom of the pecking order since birth. He is so gentle and sweet. Took me forever to figure out if he was a boy or a girl. He did not have rooster behaviors....at all. Until one day...when he finally grew up much later than the others and decided he wanted a girl friend. The head rooster did not take it well and they got in a fight. I really can't stand the fighting and had room to build him a corner in the run where he would not get beat up.

I can tell you he was sad. He looked sad. Acted sad. For weeks. Then I started the search for him some girls. I wanted them to be cochins but could not find any.....posted, searched and called everyone I knew that has chickens. Finally I found some up by my mothers and made the trip and had a visit with her and stopped on the way home to pick up my new girls. THEN got home and the next morning realized that the chickens that I did not load into the crate were two hens and two roosters. Well......Harry has his two girls and is a new boy. He even started crowing.

Could I see a difference in his behaviors. Yes. He was lonely for the flock he was raised with. He was very sad about it. Still there is one of the hens that comes around the corner to visit with him several times a day. There is one place where it is hardware cloth instead of tin and they cluck and visit with each other.

I am like the others that say it is not the same as we feel....but they do feel. They get scared, excited, lonely and sad. Not on the same level with us I am sure but on a chicken level, yes.