Jimmy Doherty of Jimmy’s Farm fame was on TV again last night. He, along with Jo Howorth, founder of the British Hen Welfare Trust (formerly the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, the organisation that we rehomed our own ex-battery hens from) were researching how ‘clever’ chickens are, and their natural behaviours. What he found is something I’ve found out myself from just a few years of keeping chickens:

1) Chickens are fantastically fast learners.

2) Despite being denied an environment that allows them to fulfil their natural instincts, such as scratching and foraging, dustbathing, perching, etc., they eventually revert to these behaviours without learning from other experienced, free ranging hens. Ours did this within DAYS. This is a MASSIVE issue – one reason alone to realise why barren battery cages, even the so-called ‘enriched cages’ (misleading name, they’re still utter shit, pardon my french), and factory farming practices are cruel and should be wiped off the face of this planet. The excuse ‘they don’t know any better’ is just tripe.

3) Chickens are predominantly social creatures, and are actually quite sophisticated in this regard. This also means they can slot into family life very easily. They’re fantastically adept at taking care of themselves (although, in all honesty, trying to syringe feed a completely obstinate and poorly hen its medication is one of the most frustrating things I’ve ever done… if only I could have explained ‘it’s for your own good’.).

There’s a common perception, I think, that chickens are just stupid. OK, so perhaps sometimes they are lacking in common sense, but I’ve always maintained that they’re extremely fast learners. In fact, on ‘The Private Life of Chickens’, they showed a short sequence where a mother hen was teaching her chicks to feed out of the ‘right’ colour bowl. They picked it up insanely quickly, abandoning their own experience in favour of following their mother’s instructions. That’s just amazing.

I suppose my point is, and ultimately what Jimmy is attempting to do, is showcase just how perceptive and, on a level, ‘intelligent’ (we’re not necessarily talking IQ here!) farm animals are. I have the feeling that many humans have a tendency to only respect animals that they feel are ‘intelligent’ or responsive, or even just good looking; dogs, cats, dolphins, elephants, for example. But the humble farm animal tends to get overlooked, I suppose so there’s not so much cognitive dissonance in play, which leads to (subconsciously) abandoning any anxiety in favour of ignorance when it comes to grappling with the reality of how millions of animals are raised and slaughtered each year. I also find it incredibly sad and frustrating that millions of animals are brought into this world (think male chicks), only to be discarded because they’re not ‘worth’ anything to us. It goes against everything I believe is right and just.

It just comes down to respect, and that can only be gained through education and awareness. The trouble is, I think the people who’s opinions and perceptions need challenging won’t have bothered switching on to watch this kind of programme. They were probably sitting in KFC chowing down on their cheap-as-chips mega bucket of factory farmed food, blissfully ignorant.