Like other mothers, female chickens (hens) are known to be protective of their young. However, researchers have gained new insight into the minds of domesticated hens, confirming, for the first time, that they show empathy for their baby chicks.
To empathise is to 'feel into' somebody and understand how they feel.
In a non-invasive experiment, researchers at the University of Bristol’s Animal Welfare and Behaviour research group in the School of Veterinary Sciences have found that domesticated hens show a clear physiological and behavioural response when their chicks are mildly distressed.
During a controlled procedure, when their chicks were exposed to a puff of air, the hens’ heart rate increased and eye temperature decreased. The hens also changed their behaviour, and reacted with increased alertness, decreased preening and increased vocalisations directed to their chicks.
Some of these responses have previously been used as indicators of an emotional response in animals. In domesticated chickens, time spent standing alert is associated with higher levels of fear. Previous research has shown that hens also selectively avoid surroundings associated with high levels of standing and low levels of preening.
Researcher Jo Edgar said: “The extent to which animals are affected by the distress of others is of high relevance to the welfare of farm and laboratory animals. Our research has addressed the fundamental question of whether birds have the capacity to show empathic responses. We found that adult female birds possess at least one of the essential underpinning attributes of ‘empathy’; the ability to be affected by, and share, the emotional state of another.”
The researchers chose to use chickens in the experiment because, under commercial conditions, chickens will regularly encounter other chickens showing signs of pain or distress due to routine husbandry practices or because of the high levels of conditions such as bone fractures or leg disorders.
Findings such as this have clear implications for the ways that we currently farm and kill the animals that we eat. We have a moral duty to minimise any distress that we cause to feeling, sentient creatures such as these. This kind of evidence strengthens the case against the keeping of farmed animals in wholly unacceptable conditions in battery cages or broiler sheds on factory farms. It’s little wonder that increasingly people who consume animal products want to choose products from animals kept in higher welfare systems. Find out more about OneKind's Campaign for Better Food Labelling. Other people of course choose to eat less animal products or none at all.
This latest finding follows on from recent confirmation by scientists that dogs feel empathy for humans.
The more we study animals the more we learn about their emotional lives, which are so like ours in so many ways, and the more evidence we have that they, like us, are sentient beings who deserve to be treated with greater compassion and respect.