The hens survival strategy

[Shadrach]

I'm wondering what difference the why makes. When you start to hypothesize why, it becomes very easy to anthropomorphaise. In dog behavior circles, which may or may not be relevant to this discussion, the behaviorists have stopped asking why, but focus on what the dog is doing. This is with intent on modifying the behavior, of course, but still, it really isn't possible to know why. Making a best guess, seems like narrowing the focus to what you think or want it to be, thus possibly missing or dismissing relevant info. Animals don't always do what would seem to be in their own best interest. Take deer freezing in the headlights, for example.

Anthropomorphising is usually frowned upon in scientific circles. Sometimes you just can't make sense of animal behavior without it. Often the basic drives are the same, its the complexity of behavior and the environment that is different.
The 'why' bit.......true, I, we, will probably never come up with a definitive answer.
I got told off at school for asking why, then at university and then at work...I can't help asking.

 

[townchicks]

Oh, I totally get it. I too, always wonder why. It just doesn't ever get us anywhere. It also leads people to do the totally wrong thing. Like the clients who would tell us their dog was "protective" of them, when it snaps at us as we reached to take it from it's owner. Reality being, the dog is scared to death of us and it's flight option has been taken off the table. Put the dog on the floor, and see if it tries to "protect " the owner. Nope, it runs like hell.

 

[Shadrach]

Interesting argument.from both sides. Does anyone have links to the studies for further reading? I can't claim any personal knowledge in the matter. But I would definitely be interested in more information.

Here's a link to a paper I think every one who keeps chickens should read.
There is a large bibliography at the end. Some of these papers are worth reading.

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/...kgo.com&httpsredir=1&article=2005&context=bts

While this paper is a start, things have moved on in behavioral research.
I have 34 distinct sounds now and other observers have about the same.
One of the problems with academic studies such as the above is they are done in controlled environments. As an example of the problems with such an approach consider the changes in behaviour of a group of males in prison to that same group in a normal social environment.
Controlled experiments that require repeatability can only tell you so much. Eventually you have to study the subject in its natural environment. Next you have the problem of defining what that natural environment is. As Centrachid mentions above somewhere, there are some behaviours that you may see once or twice in years of study, the controlled environment study is not likely to detect these behaviours.

 

[Shadrach]

Oh, I totally get it. I too, always wonder why. It just doesn't ever get us anywhere. It also leads people to do the totally wrong thing. Like the clients who would tell us their dog was "protective" of them, when it snaps at us as we reached to take it from it's owner. Reality being, the dog is scared to death of us and it's flight option has been taken off the table. Put the dog on the floor, and see if it tries to "protect " the owner. Nope, it runs like hell.

One possible definition of 'science' is that it is a means of making sense of the world around us. Observing the world around us and relating what we see to the information we already have is science.
The persistent 'why' question is what drives us to investigate the world around us.
No why, no science.
There are people who believe that we would all be better off without science and should just accept the world as we perceive it. This leads imo to extreme subjectivism where you end up with the situation where a person will state that this is the way things are because this is how I perceive them. People who believe the world is flat is one example. It isn't though.
Why imo is always a good question to ask.

 

[centrarchid]

Here's a link to a paper I think every one who keeps chickens should read.
There is a large bibliography at the end. Some of these papers are worth reading.

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/...kgo.com&httpsredir=1&article=2005&context=bts

While this paper is a start, things have moved on in behavioral research.
I have 34 distinct sounds now and other observers have about the same.
One of the problems with academic studies such as the above is they are done in controlled environments. As an example of the problems with such an approach consider the changes in behaviour of a group of males in prison to that same group in a normal social environment.
Controlled experiments that require repeatability can only tell you so much. Eventually you have to study the subject in its natural environment. Next you have the problem of defining what that natural environment is. As Centrachid mentions above somewhere, there are some behaviours that you may see once or twice in years of study, the controlled environment study is not likely to detect these behaviours.

The 34 estimate is a big time underestimate for my games. They may even have syntax. Picking out differences may be limited by phonetic background of listener.

 

[Shadrach]

In one of the papers (I think it’s in the bibliography In The Chicken Challenge) the experiment used to determine the hens response to aeriel predators went something like this.
They took a single hen and placed her in an empty room. They then suspended variously shaped objects above the hen and noted the hens reaction. As reported in TCC the hen crouched and preened.
This imo is bad science. Hens don’t live by themselves in empty rooms?
What happened after the object was removed.?
Did the flying object approach the hen?

There are lots of questions that need answering before one can say the hens response to an aerial predator attack is to crouch.
All that can be stated from such an experiment is that a hen in an empty room on seeing an object above her crouched. That is completely useless information unless you keep a single hen in an empty room and fly objects above her.
It’s an easy experiment that can be controlled from which one might extrapolate that in a similar situation the hen might crouch.
A lot of bad science produces experiments and results like this.

If you want to know what a hen does when an aerial predator attacks then you need to watch an aerial predator attacking a hen in her ‘normal’ environment. This could take years of observation and the students and academics who produce papers may only spend a couple of weeks on this particular study.
I have only seen three attacks from start to finish in seven years of observing the chickens here!
I’ve seen lots of hawks attack starts and unfortunately, lots of hawk attack results, but to see the whole process is rare.

One of the problems with science confined to the rigours of academia is the pressure is always to publish papers, and for students, to get whatever level qualification they are studying for. Another problem is the student learns a whole vocabulary with sometimes strict definitions that make communicating ideas to non academic people almost pointless.

There are a few scientists who have realised this, the physicist Richard Feyman for example, who have dumped the academic jargon and found a way of communicating complex ideas in a way that is intelligible to the lay person. We need lots more of this type of scientist.

Here is a link to a site where a chicken keeper without any academic pretensions describes what he sees. You could probably learn more from reading this site than you could listening to 20 professors

. http://www.chicken-yard.net/general/behavior.html

Rant over.



@Centrachid


In order for this to make sense you need to not think about mating opportunities and think about fear responses.

Mating can be quite a brutal and violent business if you’re a hen. In a stable group and with a mature rooster and a hen that intends to sit, the hen may crouch at the request of the rooster, or in many cases will crouch in front of the rooster inviting him to mate. It’s usually quick and if the pair are of the same breed the roosters body weight should not be that much more than the hens. Nature seems to have this fairly well sorted. With mixed breeds the situation can be quite different. The rooster can be much heavier and dimensionally larger. What this can mean is the position that the rooster should place his feet during mating doesn’t match the width of the hens shoulders and often the roosters spurs are where his feet should be. This breaks feathers and I imagine can be painful for the hen. I expect many chicken keepers have has hens with wounds in their sides from this.

If you have a group of hens without a rooster and you put a strange rooster in with this group of hens the rooster tends to charge at the nearest hen and force her to mate. The hen often crouches in this situation, not because she is interested in the rooster, but because the risk of injury in fighting the rooster off makes submission the better option.

Now consider what the hens reaction may be as the size of the rooster increases. Having a Bantam charge at a hen intent on mating with her if the hen is a fully grown Cochin for example isn’t likely to induce fear in the hen. The probability is she’ll fend the rooster off.
If the rooster is the size of the hen, then the hen may still consider the fight option.
A rooster twice the size of the hen, trying to fight the rooster off could result in the hen getting injured.
A hawk with a one metre wingspan, from the hens point of view isn’t worth trying to fight, she knows she will lose.
The question is here, does the hen know it’s a hawk.
All the studies I’ve read suggest the hen doesn’t know a hawk from a kite ,or a paper cut out in the shape of a hawk. A low flying pigeon can set off alarm calls.
Assume for the moment that the hen can’t tell a hawk from a dove in this situation. What she sees is something that could be mistaken for a rooster intent on mating with her and it’s too big to fight.
The hen crouches because this is what is likely to cause her least damage.
Next you need to bear in mind that a hen can ‘abort’ an unwanted mating. I’ve only seen this happen twice but it’s documented elsewhere so the cost to her is minimal.

There are some videos on the web of stupid people who just chuck a rooster in with a group of hens to see what happens. Have a look.

 

[True Patriot]

Are there differences between the rooster raised with the flock compared to one introduced later, as far as protective behavior? Or is it more individualize? Would one be more likely to be part of the survival strategy of the hen in the title? I have seen with mine that they run for shelter/cover when alarm is raised. Are there circumstances they would run to a rooster for protection?

 

[Shadrach]

Are there differences between the rooster raised with the flock compared to one introduced later, as far as protective behavior? Or is it more individualize? Would one be more likely to be part of the survival strategy of the hen in the title? I have seen with mine that they run for shelter/cover when alarm is raised. Are there circumstances they would run to a rooster for protection?

Yes and yes.
I should point out that my experience of introducing a rooster that has no genetic link to the tribe he joins is limited to one.
There have been other studies though that state the rooster with a genetic link to the hens is likely to be more protective. There you go,your next project

One instance I can think of where a hen runs to a rooster for protection is if that hen is being chased by a rooster that is not in her tribe.
I don't know, but I suspect that in a survival situation the hen would seek cover in preference to a rooster..

 

[centrarchid]

In my experience, the mating process is not normally a brutal process in chickens. The majority of the time the female solicits the male for mating behavior. Deviations from that are most frequently associated with disrupted social structure and cuckoldry efforts by lower ranking males.

When you have chickens at relatively high density which can be realized even with free-range birds, then you will likely have odd social interactions compared to what goes on when social groups are spaced out enough to avoid each other most of the time.

A sign of high than optimal population density of naturally breeding free-range population is low hatch and survival rate of chicks such that demographically, the population is dominated by older birds (> 2 years of age).

 

[townchicks]

@Shadrach you're kidding, right? Seriously, the rooster doesn't dust bathe because he's too proud? There's racism in chickens because one rooster he had preferred two particular hens? I give up.