This is quite a fascinating BBC video which answers some questions you may never have thought of such as:
– how smart are chickens?
– can chickens have a sex change?
– can a chicken revert back to a wild state?
– how do chickens communicate?
– can mother hens correct her chicks behavior?
Of the 10,000 species of birds on this planet, only 7 have been domesticated. And of these, the chicken is the most widely used livestock on the planet. While there are approximately 7 billion humans on earth, there are more than 19 billion chickens according the UN FAO Stats
With those kinds of numbers, I am guessing that you probably have some chickens right now, or are planning to get some. In addition to my somewhat sensational list above, this show has a lot more information. I was surprised to find that a chicken’s right eye is used for finding food, while the left is dedicated to watching for predators. There is also a lot of great footage and discussion about chicken language and behaviors. And meeting Jane Howorth and her chicken rescue project is quite inspiring.
This is definitely worth watching.
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Marjory Wildcraft is an Expedition Leader and Bioneer Blogger with The [Grow] Network, which is an online community that recognizes the wisdom of “homegrown food on every table.” Marjory has been featured as an expert on sustainable living by National Geographic, she is a speaker at Mother Earth News fairs, and is a returning guest on Coast to Coast AM. She is an author of several books, but is best known for her “Grow Your Own Groceries” video series, which is used by more than 300,000 homesteaders, survivalists, universities, and missionary organizations around the world.
COMMENTS(7)
That was stupendous! Thanks. I am surprised anything from UK was available. Can you get the Victorian Pharmacy, the one advertised at the end of this video?
Oh, I’ll look for that. Thanks for the idea.
It was listed on the same page as the chicken video.
Thanks
Very Cool, thanks for sharing this!
Loved the video, informative and entertaining…..thank you.
I will still say only one in a thousand chickens start out with a brain.
That would be the fast growing broilers I used to do. I butchered at four or five weeks old so none of them had time to grow a brain.
The 30 Isa Brown laying hens that I kept for 3 1/2 years all seemed to grow brains. They were great birds. 30 hens and 30 eggs EVERY day once they started laying at about 4 months old. I sold them because I needed their space for storage and there wasn’t enough meat on their bones to make them worth butchering. I was selling most of the eggs for twelve cents each to a local health food store. That money paid for their feed and wood chips. It also bought three shoats and paid for their feed up to 250 pound hogs then paid most for the processing fees too. The next two years they did it all again. It was like 600 pounds of free pork.
I got three bucks per bird and they went right on laying for the farmer I sold them to.
This is a wonderful documentary; I found so many new and fun facts about chickens and am pleased to understand them better. I have always respected their intelligence, but find this information doubles that and brings them into a partnership on my farm. Thanks for keeping this available for sharing.