Shad, this is interesting. I only have a couple repeat breeds, and I do see some similarities in their personalities. For example, both Buckeyes, which are two years apart in age, chase the dog. I don’t see anyone else doing that besides them and now the babies (pullets) are doing it. Both Buckeyes are also being a bit more mean to those they outrank than the others. However, this is relatively new behavior. (Some mid “behavior” issues are starting up and I think their space is maxed out.) Dorothy is my second (mostly) Leghorn and Flash has some Leghorn, too. I do see personality similarities here, too. They are more assertive and move quicker than the others. Having said that, Bridge and Ester (Barred Rocks) so far are quite different from each other. They were also raised differently from each other. What do you think about the Buckeyes and Leghorns? Coincidence?
I don’t know. I believe a number of things but that doesn’t make them true.
Behavioural science is a particularly difficult area, particularly when it comes to what is ‘natural’ and what is driven by the conditions of the experiment or the observations.
I’ve written this a few times on BYC now but it bears repeating. In order to study chickens behaviour one needs to let the chickens behave. This sounds obvious, but at what point can one say this is natural behaviour in a particular set of circumstances.
In order to set up a vilid study one would need to establish an environment that doesn’t change unnaturally for a period of time and watch how the chickens respond to it and behave within it.
If these chickens were at some point confined, or come from hatcheries, or from eggs hatched in an incubator then it’s difficult to state you are observing natural behaviour. You really need consecutive generations, naturally hatched which are raised by a mother hen and join an established group. Even with the chickens here there are still many human influence variables but their lives are reasonably close to domestic breeds gone feral in enough respects for me to say with a reasonable level of certainty that this is what they do ‘naturally’.
There have been quite a few laborotory experiemetns concerning chicken behaviour and the better studies are very specific about the conditions under which the study was conducted. Unfortunately, the media and much of the public are not well educated in science and the conclusions are often quoted as fact without regard to the experiment parameters.
One such study was to determine what hens find most attractive in roosters. The hens were confined in a room and presented with roosters with various comb sizes. Conclusions were drawn from the mating activity.
I’m 100% confident that if such a study was carried out in a different set of circumstances then there would be a different outcome. So, the conditions of the experiment or study have a major impact on the outcome. This gets overlooked more often then not. What good science should state is under these strict controls this is what we observed. Take away those controls and you are likely to get a different result.
To state with any degree of certainty one needs not just a wide range of variables but also a high level of repeatability. This is easy enough to do with non living material so physics and mathematics can produce the repeatability necessary for a high degree of certainty.
To achieve even a moderate level of certainty in behavioural patterns one needs thousands of studies or reports. So far, as I mention in the post you’ve quoted, the best we have is the anecdotal evidence of those who post here on BYC. You can search the posts if you like and do the maths, but I’m pretty sure you will end up without any statistical evidence one way or another.
If and when a combination of genes are discovered that determine behaviour no matter what the environment I would say you have a machine.
