Media Release
From: The Royal SocietyUninhibited chickens: ranging behavior impacts motor self-regulation in free-range broiler chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus)
Chicken chicken: Free-range chickens that stay close to the coop tend to be more anxious, timid—and perceptive. These qualities may explain why they outperformed their far-roaming counterparts in problem-solving tests set by researchers. The study suggests this relationship between a chicken’s personality, its tendency for exploration, and its cognitive performance, may demonstrate a level of impulse control comparable with some species of monkey.
The present study investigated how different ranging patterns in free-range chickens influence behavioral inhibition, mainly motor self-regulation. We showed that high levels of ranging behavior have a negative impact on behavioral inhibition, with high ranger chickens showing the worst performance of all species tested thus far. Low ranger chickens, however, attained higher levels of inhibition comparable to those of some monkeys and prosimians. This is the first demonstration to our knowledge of a relationship between exploratory tendencies and motor self-regulation for an avian species and gives further support to the impacts of individual behavioral differences on cognitive performances.
