The old nature versus nurture debate. How much behavior is due to breeding and how much to upbringing or environment. It's been going on a long time with lots of evidence on both sides. I'll stir things up with my opinions.
In my opinion breed has very little, if anything, to do with it. Breeding can. If a person selecting which chickens get to breed uses a certain behavior as a selection criteria they can enhance that behavior in the offspring. That works with mutts just as well as with specific breeds. If they are consistent over a few generations that behavior can be typical in that flock. To me an easy example in chickens is broodiness. If you only hatch eggs laid by hens that go broody, you can soon have a flock where most hens go broody. If you only hatch eggs from hens that never go broody, like a lot of production breeds, you can have a flock where broodiness is really rare. But you have to be consistent. This does not mean that every hen in one flock goes broody while every hen in the other flock never does but you can get a tremendously strong tendency. The same thing is true of roosters of any breed, if you consistently breed the fighters they will tend to fight.
Of course we have to agree on a definition of a breed. My definition is going to be different from a lot of other people. I'm not going to get into that very deeply. To me there is nothing natural about a breed, breed is a manmade thing created by selective breeding.
How much is due to environment? I think quite a bit. One example, I'm convinced that if you shoehorn chickens into a small space you are much more likely to see bad behaviors than if they have plenty or room. I'll very roughly paraphrase Leon Uris. If people have to act like animals to survive a lot of the survivors will act like animals. I'm not sure how appropriate that is to this discussion but I thought of it.
Then you have basic instinct. If you get a bunch of baby chicks of any breed or mix of breeds from any flock and raise them together with no adult chickens around to influence them, they will grow into flock that acts like a flock of chickens. They will sort out the social order/pecking order of a flock of chickens. Hens will generally return to the same nest to lay eggs. They will chase grasshoppers. They will do things that chickens instinctively do.
In my opinion breed has very little, if anything, to do with it. Breeding can. If a person selecting which chickens get to breed uses a certain behavior as a selection criteria they can enhance that behavior in the offspring. That works with mutts just as well as with specific breeds. If they are consistent over a few generations that behavior can be typical in that flock. To me an easy example in chickens is broodiness. If you only hatch eggs laid by hens that go broody, you can soon have a flock where most hens go broody. If you only hatch eggs from hens that never go broody, like a lot of production breeds, you can have a flock where broodiness is really rare. But you have to be consistent. This does not mean that every hen in one flock goes broody while every hen in the other flock never does but you can get a tremendously strong tendency. The same thing is true of roosters of any breed, if you consistently breed the fighters they will tend to fight.
Of course we have to agree on a definition of a breed. My definition is going to be different from a lot of other people. I'm not going to get into that very deeply. To me there is nothing natural about a breed, breed is a manmade thing created by selective breeding.
How much is due to environment? I think quite a bit. One example, I'm convinced that if you shoehorn chickens into a small space you are much more likely to see bad behaviors than if they have plenty or room. I'll very roughly paraphrase Leon Uris. If people have to act like animals to survive a lot of the survivors will act like animals. I'm not sure how appropriate that is to this discussion but I thought of it.
Then you have basic instinct. If you get a bunch of baby chicks of any breed or mix of breeds from any flock and raise them together with no adult chickens around to influence them, they will grow into flock that acts like a flock of chickens. They will sort out the social order/pecking order of a flock of chickens. Hens will generally return to the same nest to lay eggs. They will chase grasshoppers. They will do things that chickens instinctively do.
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