Official News page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: EMPATHETIC CHICKENS

by Hazed

Hot on the heels of the news that sheep are not as stupid as you think comes a study showing that chickens show empathy, at least for the suffering of their baby chicks.

Empathy is the ability to be affected by, and share, the emotional state of another.

The researchers thought that empathy "most probably evolved to facilitate parental care," so they decided to find out if mother hens "responded to advertise stimulus directed at their chicks." That's right, they tortured chicks to see how their mothers reacted.

They inflicted the suffering by delivering "air puffs" to the chicks. Oh, the horror! The mummy chickens' reaction was "increased heart rate and maternal vocalisation" which happened "exclusively during the APC treatment, even though chicks produced few distress vocalisations."

The conclusion: "The pronounced and specific reaction observed indicates that adult female birds possess at least one of the essential underpinning attributes of empathy."

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/10/chicken_empathy/

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