Feather-brained? Chickens may have a greater capacity for thought, feeling and suffering than we've previously given them credit for, which has major implications for the way we farm them

摘要

As I walk over to Spot, Rover, Gem and Patch, they rush towards me, quacking madly. Patch flaps his wings and Gem fixes one bilberry-blue beady eye upon me. What, I wonder yet again, is going on inside their little duck heads? A few years ago I made adocumentary for BBC2 on animal consciousness. While I certainly didn't think I'd cracked the problem of what consciousness is, I thought I'd made a reasonable attempt at trying to explain it within the limits that television affords. Now, as I look at my ducks looking at me, I have no idea what their consciousness might be like. Do they have any? Perhaps they are just complex slug-eating machines.