Whoever has what hurts, he talks about that. Undoubtedly, life's problems are the main topics of communication between people. And what are the chickens talking about? Can they talk at all, or is there no point in their clucking? Belgian researchers have determined that there is a meaning, and even identified a few chicken "words".
The chicken farm in Eastmore (Derbyshire, England) contains 180,000 broiler chickens. Their age is short, but the owner of the farm, David Speller (David Speller) believes that he simply must provide them with a decent existence. Of course, not out of love for birds, but in order to preserve and increase the money invested in the business, Speller tries to adhere to the most advanced methods and provides the chickens with the most favorable living conditions.
The automatic system constantly monitors the level of carbon dioxide in the chicken coops in order to ventilate the premises on time. Underfloor heating maintains the optimum temperature. The entire chicken care process is based on scientific advice.
However, it would be nice to know how the advice of experienced specialists corresponds to the subjective sensations of the chicken, are the birds comfortable?
Video cameras in chicken coops day and night monitor the movements and body movements of birds. Observers are diligently examining the broiler population, trying to figure out how the wards are feeling, are they sick? It would be nice to ask the chickens themselves about this. Alas, until recently it was impossible to get an answer from them.
Nevertheless, the idea, as they say, was in the air. So when Speller got an offer to take part in a European project to increase the efficiency of livestock production, the owner of the farm happily agreed.
To begin with, researchers from the University of Leuven (Denmark) in the laboratory recorded the clucking of one chicken in different situations. After analyzing the spectral components of the signals, the scientists managed to isolate 11 unique "words" from the seemingly meaningless noise and interpret them.
It turned out that chickens are able to report that they are hot or cold, want to eat or drink, that the light is too bright or dim, and even that they are scared, hurt, or, on the contrary, they are happy with everything. Microphones installed on the farm now transmit sounds from the chicken coops to the computer, where a special program translates the chicken clucking into information about the birds' health.
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According to Speller, who owns not only a farm in Eastmore, but a dozen others that raise a total of 2.5 million chickens, the happiness of the birds is the key to efficient production. The businessman hopes that the new technology will lead to a 10% increase in profits.
“We have identified 11 different sounds, including heat, cold, hunger, thirst, bright light, dim light, stress, pain and comfort,” says the broiler owner. "We can link them to the five basic freedoms of the animal - freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, illness and injury, fear and grief - to do the right thing."
The introduction of technology into production is still at the very beginning. It turned out to be much easier to understand what one chicken was clucking about in the laboratory than to interpret the noise of an entire hen house.
Researchers are currently working on the problem of how to separate the individual chicken voice from the cacophony of sounds. One of its solutions could be mobile robots with microphones that move inside the chicken coops.
David Speller believes he will be able to introduce the new technology to all of his farms in the coming years.
Alexey Norkin