CHICKENS WATCH TELEVISION


From the Electronic Telegraph , April 2, 1998.

THE stressful life of the battery chicken can be relieved with a daily dose of television, scientists reveal today.

Chicks that watch television grow quicker on less food, lay larger eggs more regularly and appear to be happier. Half an hour of television viewing a day "made them more rounded and less self-conscious", says Dr Bryan Jones, an animal behaviouralist at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh. "They are more phlegmatic, more interested in their environment and more sociable. It's reflected in better health and performance."

With Colette Clarke, a research student, Dr Jones introduced a television into the chicks' cage for 30 minutes a day. Once the chicks had overcome their suspicions of the electronic intruder, they were hooked. Dr Jones says: "By the end of each 12-day trial, the chicks would rush down to the end of the cage and line up in rows to watch it. They seemed enthralled and stood in front of the screen, watching for the entire half hour."

American and Australian research has found that adult hens respond to television images of predators and food as they would to the real thing. Dr Clarke says: "We wanted to use a stimulus that wasn't biologically inherent, so we chose computer screen-savers. The more they watched them, the more interested and fascinated they became. They seem to like the fact that it's changing, but not too much." Dr Clarke experimented with three screen-savers - an aquarium with animated fish, another in which toasters fly across the screen and a third in which string unravels. "They liked the flying toasters best," Dr Clarke says. "Maybe it's the tiny flapping wings on them."

The research, part of a Government-sponsored project to reduce animal alarm and aggression, is revealed in New Scientist today. In the next stage of the research, the scientists will introduce the chicks to day-time television. "Nature programmes would probably be best at first," Dr Jones says. "I would not advocate introducing them to Richard and Judy straight away. It could be too frightening."