told u so...

From http://www.peta.org/feat/hiddenlives/

(emm.... i told u ppl.. now i just need to get this book: The Development of Brain and Behaviour in the Chicken to continue.. kakakakakakaka)

A Few Examples of Chicken Capabilities

• The video “Let’s Ask the Animals,” produced by the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour in the United Kingdom, shows chickens learning which bowls contain food by watching television, learning to peck a button three times in order to obtain food, and learning how to navigate a complex obstacle course in order to get to a nesting box.

• In 2002, the PBS documentary The Natural History of the Chicken revealed that “[c]hickens love to watch television and have vision similar to humans. They also seem to enjoy all forms of music, especially classical.”

• Chickens are able to learn by watching the mistakes of others and are very adept at teaching and learning.

• Chickens also can learn to use switches and levers to change the temperature in their surroundings and to open doors to feeding areas.

• Chickens have more than 30 distinct cries to communicate to one another, including separate alarm calls depending on whether a predator is traveling by land or sea.

• A mother hen will turn her eggs as many as five times an hour and cluck to her unborn chicks, who will chirp back to her and to one another from within their shells!

• Chickens navigate by the sun.

• A hen will often go without food and water, if necessary, just to have a private nest in which to lay her eggs.

• Like us, chickens form strong family ties and mourn when they lose a loved one.

• Kim Sturla, who runs Animal Place, a sanctuary for abused and discarded farmed animals, has seen chickens empathize and show affection for one another. She recalls an endearing story about two elderly chickens who had been rescued from a city dump. “Mary” and “Notorious Boy” bonded and would roost on a picnic table together. One stormy night when the rain was really pelting down, Sturla went to put Mary and Notorious Boy in the barn and saw that “the rooster had his wing extended over the hen protecting her.”