• Question: how do you know what a chicken wants to eat.

    Asked by ianfair12 to Louise on 18 Mar 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Pendry

      Louise Pendry answered on 18 Mar 2010:

      Hi Ianfair12!

      Good question – that’s the problem – I don’t know what they prefer out of the choices I give them. I am trying to find out. I do know that chickens can be really smart and pick foods that make them feel better. Lots of animals can do this. We call this “Nutritional wisdom”.

      I really like a study which shows that chickens will eat a diet that has painkillers in it when they are in pain. Lameness is a real problem for chickens. Sometimes it is because they don’t have enough calcium in their food so they get fractures. Sometimes it is because they grow too quickly and get too fat and heavy for their legs(people have bred them like this). Scientists gave chickens a choice between:
      A) Normal chicken feed,
      And
      B) Normal chicken feed + painkillers
      Limping chickens (chickens in pain) ate more of the food with the painkiller in it. Non-limping chickens didn’t.

      The other study I like did the same thing with calcium. Layer-chickens (chickens that lay the eggs we eat) lay so many eggs that that they can use up too much calcium. Their bodies start stealing the calcium from their bones so that it can make eggshells (chickens lay an egg almost every day). This means the bones get weak and are prone to breaking. Scientists gave chickens a choice between:
      A) Normal chicken feed,
      AND
      B) Normal chicken feed + loads of extra calcium
      Chickens that were short on calcium picked diet B. Chickens that had plenty of calcium in their bodies didn’t.

      Both these studies show chickens can be wise when it comes to picking food. I was hoping that they would do the same thing for me. But they don’t. What I wanted to find out was would really hungry chickens prefer:
      A) A tiny quantity of high quality food (very yummy but very tiny portion so remains hungry)
      OR
      B) A much larger quantity of poor quality feed (the diet above but with loads of fibre and drugs to supress appetite mixed in – we think it makes the chickens feel much less hungry)

      If diet B makes them feel more full then I thought a wise chicken would pick B. But my chickens didn’t 🙁 Now I am trying to find out why.

      Really good question mate! Why do you think my chickens didn’t choose? Did I screw up? Or, did my chickens?

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