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As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, consuming both their meatand their eggs.

• Chickens can distinguish between more than 100 faces of their own species. 

• Chickens know who’s boss—they form complex social structures known as “pecking orders,” and every chicken knows his or her place on the social ladder.

• Chickens have full-color vision—no color-blindness here!

• Chickens are real sleeping beauties—they experience rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which means they dream just like we do.

• Chickens have pain receptors that give them the ability to feel pain and distress.

• Hens defend their young from predators.

• Chickens have more than 30 types of vocalizations to distinguish between threats.

• Chickens are just like human mothers who talk to their babies in the womb—a mother hen begins to teach calls to her chicks before they even hatch. In a natural setting, a mother hen will cluck to her chicks before they have even hatched and they will churp back to her and to each other through their shells. In factory farms, a chick will never get to meet his or her parents because they are taken from her as soon as they are laid and placed in large incubators.

• Chickens slurp grass like spaghetti. 

• Chickens LOVE dust baths. 

•  Chickens have complex communication with specific meanings : When you spend enough time around chickens, you’ll start to understand their many different vocalizations, from calling their youngsters to alerting others of the whereabouts of food.

•  Chickens like to play. When given enough space, chickens will run, jump, spa and even sunbathe. Unfortunately, around 95% of all chickens raised in the United States spend their entire lives in tiny cages no bigger than the size of an iPad.

• Chickens are a lot more clever than you think.

• Chickens are technically dinosaurs. Research has proven that not only have chickens evolved from dinosaurs and are the closest living relative to the magnificent T. rex, they are in fact living dinosaurs.