THE chickens I am very communicative animals and they use different types of calls to express their emotional states, but how good are humans at understanding what these birds are feeling? A new study has found that most people are capable of recognize the various types of chicken callsand from them understand if they are happy or frustrated simply by listening to them.
The study, conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Queenslandin Australia, involved almost 200 volunteers who listened to audio recordings of chickens in different situations. The scientists trained the chickens to associate different sounds, such as beeps, rings and buzzes, with different treats behind a swinging door: some surprises were positivesuch as mealworms or regular chicken feed, others were neutralas a powder for cleaning feathers, e others were negativelike an empty bowl.
The researchers recorded the chickens' calls when they knew there was a positive treat behind the door, when they didn't know what was behind the door, and when they knew there was a negative surprise. They then played these recordings to the volunteers and asked them to rate the emotional state of the hens on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 meant very frustrated and 5 meant very happy.
The results showed that the 69% of volunteers were able to distinguish between the calls of happy hens and those of frustrated hensIn particular, the calls of happy hens were characterized by fast or high-pitched clucks, known as food calls, while the calls of frustrated hens were characterized by long, wavering yelps and moans, known as gakel calls.
The professor Joerg Henning, senior author of the studyhe has declared:
“This study shows that people involved in raising chickens can identify the emotional state of the birds they care for, even if they have no previous experience. This is important because it could help farmers improve the welfare of their flocks by monitoring their calls and intervening when necessary.”
What else came out of the study on chicken calls
The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, is based on previous research who suggested that humans can interpret the emotions of many other animals, such as tree frogs, alligators, crows and giant pandas, from their calls. These studies have led scientists to hypothesize that i Terrestrial vertebrates share an emotional vocal signaling systemwhich would have evolved through subsequent adaptations in the vocal organs of animals.
This idea had already been proposed by Victorian naturalist Charles Darwinwhich in his book The Descent of Man from 1871he had written that many creatures not only shared a talent for emotionally charged calls, but that they could respond to emotions in the calls of other species as well.
If this hypothesis holds true, monitoring chicken calls could become a useful tool for assessing animal welfare, Henning said.
“With the advent of artificial intelligence, we could develop systems that analyze chicken calls in real time and alert farmers when their chickens are unhappy. This would provide a convenient and cost-effective way to improve welfare assessment methods in the commercial chicken production sector.”
The welfare of chickens is one question of great importancegiven that these are the most numerous farm animals in the world, with approx 23 billion specimens. Improving the living conditions and treatment of these birds could have a positive impact not only on their well-being, but also on the quality of the resulting productssuch as eggs and meat, and on the environment.
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