The Register-Guard (Oregon) made the mistake recently of publishing an article in which it quoted the manager of local Noti’s Greener Pastures Poultry as claiming that chickens don’t have feelings. Karen Davis responsded with a letter in which she begged to differ and described her personal relationship with her favorite chicken.
Noti’s manager Aaron Silverman told the newspaper that,
If you spend time with chickens, you realize pretty quickly that they don’t hae feelings and emotions the way horses or dogs do. I’ve even had pigs that pout, but I have never seen a chicken pout.
That slight of the chicken was just too much for Davis, who describes her close personal relatinship with her chicken, Viva,
My nonprofit organization, United Poultry Concerns, grew out of the bond I formed with a chicken named Viva who escaped being slaughtered in 1987. From Viva, I learned many things. For example, when you hold a chicken close to your heart and she squirrels her neck around your neck and buries her face in your hair, she often purss like a cat. If you have — as I do — a yard full of hens and roosters, you learn quickly how emotional these birds are.
Whatever you say, Karen.
Source:
Chickens have feelings. Karen Davis, letter to the editor, The Register-Guard (Oregon), September 7, 2002.