How smart are chickens?

Asking for a friend...

Said friend has a rooster that seems to have taken up residence in his yard. Has tried chasing it off to no avail, it always reappears. Today while doing yard stuff, he inadvertently allegedly hit it with the weedeater. No blood or anything, Mr. Rooster just lost some feathers in the BZZZZT. He ran away clucking.

My question is, are roosters smart enough to go somewhere else when they get stung? Or are they more stupider than that?

Friend..................Roosters are territorial and good protectors but I'm convinced it's all instinct. I have seen no brain activity in any of our chickens. Ever. They are social though.

ID Bronco said:

Friend..................Roosters are territorial and good protectors but I'm convinced it's all instinct. I have seen no brain activity in any of our chickens. Ever. They are social though.

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My friend just doesn't want the territory being protected to be his house/property. SO MUCH POO. And so much noise at 4am. Every. Single. Morning.

Ours are, interesting. Mostly instinct but I do see them pick up and understand patterns and timings. As far as getting hurt and running off? Probably went to hide somewhere and went catatonic for a little while. It will come around and continue to annoy you your friend soon.

I Lean said:

My friend just doesn't want the territory being protected to be his house/property. SO MUCH POO. And so much noise at 4am. Every. Single. Morning.

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You'll have to tell your friend to "rehome" that rooster to a slow cooker.

Roosters are prohibited in most cities. Your zoning may be different. I'd catch the sucker and remove it.

I had a friend, a very interesting friend with a very interesting past (born in Ireland, served in the navy here, used the GI bill to become a meatcutter/butcher and worked in artisan meats (charcuterie, sausages, etc), then taught himself graphic design and web design and started a very successful agency, then fired all of his customers and spent a year in the mountains of Peru, then came back and got a masters in Psychology, and just recently finished a PHD in some other Pshychology field....he's also like 6'2", 240, bald head, massive beard, tattooed head to toe, big stretched ears........not the person you'd expect to be this person if you saw him on the street....

At any rate, he likes to do unique things and probably 10 years ago or so he decided he wanted backyard chickens. He didn't know anything about them, but bought/built a very nice chicken house in his yard then responded to an add on KSL to buy some chickens. He went out there and the lady took one look at him and said "these are pretty rare chickens and are really expensive, (some pointless redbreasted chicken hawk/peacock chicken breed that nobody cares about outside of maybe the fair or an FFA competition), so maybe you should look for some more basic (cheaper) chickens for your coup". Of course, being that they were considered to be some pointless rare chicken that none of his friends would have, he instantly knew that despite this women's urgings, these were in fact, the chickens he wanted. As he tells it, he asked her how much they were and in his head he was prepared to spend up to $1000 per chicken to have these pointless rare chickens. I guess they were $30 or something so he bought all of them, much to this lady's surprise.

Well he gets these pointless chicken homes and eventually figures out that a couple of them are roosters and are making an ungodly racket in his yard at ungodly hours. Probably similar to your friends' chicken. He tried to find a place to rehome these pointless and noisy roosters, but none of the animal places would take them. So he did what any one of us would do, and took the pointless chickens up to the Hogle Zoo and threw them over the fence.

Perhaps that would be a solution to your friend's problem? Surely the zoo would take care/find a use for the chicken?

It will likely keep coming back. Chicken are really dumb. When we had chickens one turned out to be a rooster. We put an add on the board at IFA and a farmer came and got him.

ID Bronco said:

You'll have to tell your friend to "rehome" that rooster to a slow cooker.

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Yep, chicken soup 🍲 .

Go back to the day you discovered your bathroom door has a lock and choke that chicken like there's no tomorrow.

We took our Chickens to Wheeler farm when we were younger. When we dropped them off and said our Good-byes about a dozen of the chickens that they had that looked like they were on Deaths Doorstep had necklace's on them said Albertsons. We learned that's where ours would eventually end up.

Our zoo takes them too.

Assuming that your friend lives where I think they do, their neighbor with the chicken isn't supposed to let them out of their yard, and isn't supposed to have roosters at all. I'm not normally one for municipal codes, but this literally what they're for.


I think if said neighbor were my neighbor, they'd find a note on their door, and then if that didn't work they'd find their chicken for sale on Facebook.

Kevin B. said:

Assuming that your friend lives where I think they do, their neighbor with the chicken isn't supposed to let them out of their yard, and isn't supposed to have roosters at all. I'm not normally one for municipal codes, but this literally what they're for.

Magna : Municipal Code

magna.municipalcodeonline.com

I think if said neighbor were my neighbor, they'd find a note on their door, and then if that didn't work they'd find their chicken for sale on Facebook.

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Invite them over for some chicken noodle soup.

How smart are chickens is like how hot is ice.

- DAA

I have thoroughly enjoyed this read, my wife actually asked me what was so funny because I guess I laughed out loud a couple of times. Locking the bathroom door would be one of my thoughts. Maybe that's why you go blind, the pecker will poke you in the eye. Anyway, my oldest brother had his pilots license before his drivers license. Our family had 6 boys very closely spaced out, two girls and then me. I do know that the two oldest would take stray animals, mostly cats, fly them out over the Great Salty Lake of ours and see if they could fly. My father always had planes and my brother would fly my other brothers around and in my head, I think a chicken dropped from 10,000 feet should be able to learn to fly really good in that drop and then follow that up with a swimming lesson. They dropped ping pong balls and candy out over the homecoming game. This was the early 70s and you could get away with a lot back then.

My vote is a pellet gun, and then rehome to the thread that someone has fox around his house. I can't remember who posted it. I have two peacocks I'm dealing with right now.

DAA said:

How smart are chickens is like how hot is ice.

- DAA

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What if you're talking about Icy Hot?

Not smart, but very territorial. If it attacks you or a kid, they can do some serious damage with their spurs. As long as the owner doesn't find out, I would lobotomize it with a pellet gun or similar, somewhat quiet method.

rholbrook said:

My vote is a pellet gun, and then rehome to the thread that someone has fox around his house. I can't remember who posted it. I have two peacocks I'm dealing with right now.

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I would love to leave it out on the altar for the foxes... yesssssssssss