If chickens can't taste sweetness...

[Faithjo]

Mine love sugar coated donuts! I didn’t know they couldn’t taste sugar because they love themthey aren’t as crazy about plain bread. They also love grapes and won’t hardly eat carrots, lettuce or cabbage much if at all.

 

[Ecarroll]

Chickens love Bitter/Sour flavors that's why they go nuts for cranberry. Chickens hate salty from what I've read.

Funny, my chickens don’t really like cranberries, they eat them, but some even spot them out. Much prefer and go crazy over stuff like blueberries and grapes. But mine are kind of weird, they prefer blueish fruits (grapes, blueberries etc) to red ones (sometimes won’t even touch strawberries, but do love wild raspberry). Also salty things they seem to like just as well as non salty.

 

[SourRoses]

They definitely can taste sugar, they prefer sweet things.
Adding some sugar to water for chicks / ill chickens encourages them to drink more.

 

[Altairsky]

I believe they can taste sugar. Since they're omnivores, they can probably taste more things than carnivore animals (cats for example can't taste sugar, they eat sweet junk food because they can taste the fat in it and they love it).
And even if chickens can't taste sugar, they probably taste something else that comes with fruit. Mine could jump and pick a ripe grape out of an unripe bunch with surgical precision.

 

[Perris]

Chickens hate salty from what I've read

where did you read that?

Every chicken can not only detect salt but has a very fine tuned sense for it, because too little, or too much, salt will kill it. So if it is in need of salt, it will find the taste of salt delicious, and if it has enough salt already in its system, it will find the taste of salt aversive.

Hence people can have seen their chickens like salty food, and dislike salty food, even if it's the same chickens at different times. Evolution, and some basic science, explains why, as above.

 

[MysteryChicken]

where did you read that?

Every chicken can not only detect salt but has a very fine tuned sense for it, because too little, or too much, salt will kill it. So if it is in need of salt, it will find the taste of salt delicious, and if it has enough salt already in its system, it will find the taste of salt aversive.

Hence people can have seen their chickens like salty food, and dislike salty food, even if it's the same chickens at different times. Evolution, and some basic science, explains why, as above.

It was a research article I read a few years ago, doubt I'd be able to find it again easily now though.

 

[Perris]

It was a research article I read a few years ago, doubt I'd be able to find it again easily now though.

well if you do want to read up on current thinking on it, Simpson and Raubenheimer The Nature of Nutrition 2012 chapter 3 deals explicitly with the theory and experimental results of salt intake. The rest of the book deals with the other macro- and micro-nutrients, including sugars and the sweet taste.

 

[Perris]

even if chickens can't taste sugar, they probably taste something else that comes with fruit

I am sure you are right about that; colour comes into personal and species preferences too. I have been digging a bit on birds' ability to detect sweetness, and found that some, e.g. honeyeaters, hummingbirds, lories and sunbirds, can.

In brief, the relevant genes coding for the umami (protein, savoury flavour) receptor ('taste bud') are apparently very, very old, and existed in an ancestor common to both mammals and birds. There are very few differences that distinguish the umami receptor from a sugar receptor, so it doesn't need many changes in the DNA sequence to develop the sweet receptor. So now some birds can taste sweetness, while some mammals cannot.