Stupid Chicken?

[rirluvr]

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I think we should give this a try. we should come up with a list of things a chicken must be able to perform and then breed those that meet the requirements.

 

[hermiesbirdies]

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I agree collect and breed the smartest of the bunch.

 

[write2caroline]

From time to time we need to herd our chickens into the coop and our Barred Rock is very clever. Once we trapped her in what we refer to as the shoot - The area between the two coops and while we can use this maneuver over and over for the other chickens- Addidas does not fall for it and will not go into the shoot. We didn't even hurt or or anything. She is devilishly good at avoiding capture and only goes into the coop under her own terms. - Lately they have begun ringing a bell and I feel compelled to go bring them treats! Just kidding!
Caroline

 

[Meralee]

I had a banty hen that would run up to me,look up at my shoulder and fly straight up to perch there.If I had the back door open for some breeze she would come inside looking for me and she was a talker!! Mer

 

[JP33]

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Thanks to everyone for the stories and feedback! Y'all are helping me understand some of their capabilities as I learn more about my own flock.

As for different personalities, I'm definitely seeing this first hand. It could have something to do with the fact that I have three different breeds. Traits & nuances may very well vary according to breed type but we'll save that for another discussion or has that already been discussed here in another post?


...JP

 

[flakey chick]

I started with a small order of chicks that left me 2 hens- roos were given away. I'll call them the smart one and the not-so-smart one.

1) As teenagers they were both smart enough to peck on the door at bed time when it was time to go back into the brooder. (They got to go out in the tractor in the morning and a little free-range in the evening.) Eventually they lived full time outside in the tractor, but the smart one had the homing instinct of a salmon. When she was ready to start laying, she insisted on being let into the sunroom where the brooder had been. She "knew" that's where the babies are supposed to be raised.

2) I was lying down feeding them treats on my chest. When there were no more, the smart one immediately jumped down and stuck her head in the treat pocket. The not-so-smart one. Started scratching around on my chest and then checked up my nose.

3) I let the girls out of the tractor, but only the bright one went out. Later I heard her on the porch pitching a fit at the door (the last place she had seen me). The not-so-bright one couldn't figure out how to get out so the bright one went to get help.

4) They both exhibited intelligence / perception one day when they pitched a fit on the front porch. We went out to check but couldn't see what set them off. Then our weather radio alert went off warning of tornado conditions.

Even though the alpha hen is not-so-smart, I tell her how clever she is to catch bugs and turn them into eggs. She seems to appreciate the flattery. Unfortunately she hasn't been clever for months.

 

[rirluvr]

when I get my next batch of chicks i will start setting the smart ones aside. If I had known this forum existed prior to my mcmurray order I would have ordered from the people in here.

 

[Noble Rooster]

This thread is excellent. I agree with the poster above who mentioned that we as a species can be so blind to other animals' intelligence, just because it looks different from ours and can be hard to recognize as such. Animals who can cross the species communication barrier to make their needs known to us display intelligence, even if their "skills" don't extend beyond letting us know when they are hungry.

We have 6 sex-link hens (one golden comet named Dreamer and 5 others who might be Gingernuts or something along those lines -- all were from Tractor Supply and were born in early April '09). I spend a lot of time outside with them observing them and have been privileged to learn just how intelligent they are (which really shouldn't be surprising since birds in general rank pretty high on the intelligence scale). Examples:

1) Dreamer knows her name, comes when she is called, and is the first to learn tricks like jumping up onto my shoulder for a treat, etc. The others learn by watching her. She's my little princess and I love watching her figure stuff out.

2) All 6 know the morning coop cleaning routine and when they see me emerge from the stall where there coop is with the bag of poop, they immediately head back in and hop up into the coop since they know it's time to go back inside.

3) They have told me when they need to go back inside to lay. One girl (whom I named Messenger for her communicating behavior) was very insistent about it. She had just come into laying this summer and I guess her body wasn't really on a regular schedule yet/she wasn't really on top of the urge yet. We were outside one day when she stopped pecking around with the others and ran over to me, clucking insistently. I asked her what was going on, and she hopped into my lap, looked pointedly at me and clucked again. She then hopped down and ran over to the side of the barn, looking up as if she wanted to jump. The barn has stalls with dutch doors and the one she was looking at had both the top and bottom halves closed. She looked at the door and then looked at me and clucked again. Being a slow human, I was still trying to figure out what she wanted. She then jumped up and climbed my leg (I had been standing with one knee slightly bent so she had a bit of a slope to climb up), into my arms, looked at me again, then looked straight at the door and clucked. By now, the light went on for me and I opened the top half of the stall door. She hopped from my arms and perched on the lower door, looked at me again, and clucked. So I let us both in through the lower door and she ran straight to the coop. She wasn't sure about hopping up into it at that point (again a vision thing, as others have mentioned) so she waited for me to come and put her in. I finally did, she looked at me and gave a different cluck ("Thank you"? "Took you long enough"?

) and hopped into a nest box. From then on if she has anything that needs to be communicated to me, from wanting to go inside to being a bit unsure about why the crows are sending up an alarm to just wanting to hop on my lap to be scratched or to peck at whatever I'm reading, she stops what she's doing and makes this specific cluck. Another girl also routinely communicates to me if she needs to go back inside to lay with gestures and looks but no clucking.

4) I can indicate by body language when I want them to go into their coop specifically rather than just into the barn in general. I had been working on teaching them this when one day 2 were attacked by a sharpshinned hawk while I was standing right there with them (bold hawk!). I managed to fend off the hawk so no one was hurt, but that incident underscored the importance of my being able to tell them to go inside at once. They had it figured out about a day or two afterwards and I am so glad I have taught it to them.

Regarding imprinting, I was the one who held them in the little Happy Meal-style box that TSC gave us to bring them home, so I spoke to them the whole way home so they wouldn't be nervous. By the time we got home they had imprinted on my voice and the presence of my body, so when we put them in the brooder and I turned and walked 2 steps away, they started making distress calls. I spoke to them and they stopped. The first night they were with us they would calm down immediately if I spoke. I have always been the primary caregiver and spend probably 2 hours a day with them between feeding, cleaning, and supervising free-ranging time. They've always followed me in a little group wherever I go, come when I call "Girls!", come running to greet me if my husband is out with them when I arrive home, and generally let me do all sorts of things with them.

My husband laughs that they never let him do anything with them.

As another poster mentioned above, these girls are totally living out their natural life spans with us. After observing them so closely and seeing their individual personalities at work, there's no way I would part with them (not that it had been formally part of the plan to begin with...).

I highly recommend the book King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz for anyone who is interested in imprinting or just animal intelligence in general. He was an Austrian scientist who did a lot of work with animal intelligence in the 50s through the 70s and was one of the first people to identify imprinting as such. The book is about the different things he observed with various animals (from Siamese fighting fish, to hamsters and moles, to geese, jackdaws, and other birds) and is written in a very charming and accessible way. Anyone who enjoys watching animals will love it.

Again, great thread! I look forward to reading what other folks have seen their chickies do!

 

[LilBizzy]

I was actually just talking about this with my son. I have a little bantam flock - 8 girls and one roo. When I hang out with them, if the girls all gather around me, the little roo will stand about 10 feet away, and pick something up in his beak- a leaf, stick, even a little rock- and start making the " Hey girls I have something good to eat" sound. The girls all run over and surround him, look at him like he is nuts. When they come back to me, he goes a little further, grabs something, and calls them over even louder and more excitedly.
He doesn't want his girls hanging around me. He wants them around HIM.

My other girls all run and line up along the fence when they see the neighbor. But that is because the neighbor brings them treats.

My wonderful Biggest Little Rooster used to go inside the shed ( where they lived for the first 5 months of their lives whle their coop was being built) And he would call the others in when it was time for bed. He would run in and out of the shed calling the others until they were all safely inside.

 

[dianer29]

They are not stupid........... I have 7 SILKIES. Pele is the Buff Silkie who is the leader of the flock.I noticed she was wiser than anyone would think to give her credit for right from day one. Keep in mind if you do not put the social time in with them than you might not believe that a chicken has any brains whatsoever. By keen interaction,stimulation,observation one can learn alot about them. They actually have different personalities.If you are raising them and not putting the above quality of time into it than you lessen the chance of certain experiences. I ,by no means am knocking anyone here on the blog. We all have different lives and expectations as well as time restrictions involved in our poultry care. Let me tell you my story about my Pele: From day one I noticed she is extremely alert and insistant as well as having leadership qualities. She took the flock right over by persuaison and consistancy in her actions with all of them.She did not bully her way to spot number one. I was on a vigilant observation and I still am on their behaviors so I can learn as much as I can about them and overlook any issues that need to be addressed socially or otherwise.
Pele needed a little sugar and water when she arrived from the long trip from the mainland to here on The Big Island. I gave those that needed that interaction same as what she received. She routinely looks for me by pacing and trying to climb the run and mumbling if I am in there tending to their care. She insists on hand feeding and will pretest the water that I give them every morning and then signal it is ok to drink it. When she feels there is comething that does not meet with her expectations such as I did not clean the shavings out of the water she will peck at it until I clean ot out. She goes to the small litter box I put in there for dustbathing and inspects it and if the others are in it before her one stink eye look coming up for all of them and out they go. She talks to me real quiet when I come over to her and it seems to soothe her,this is learned behavior as that was something I did from the beginning ,have conversations in a low tone when they wanted comfort,she uses that behavior more than the others. She has this strong presence yet it is comforting to the others. At the beginning there really wasn't any fight for the top ,yet the other ranks did their thing and still do to rearrange the pecking order. She is the only Buff in there and of course they are 18 weeks old so as common with SILKIES it takes a bit longer to figure out if any roos in flock. I have a Black one in there that makes the egg laying noise but no eggs from anyone yet and she is the only one to do that sound ,especially if I sneeze.lol.
As I said in beginning I am spending alot of quality time with them as conditions allow me to so I really do not miss much. All my birds are a bit different from each other I just wanted to tell you a small fraction of how the leader behaves so that you perhaps can learn like I am everyday.