A chicken from British Columbia has secured a place in the Guinness World Records by demonstrating an extraordinary ability to identify numbers, colors, and letters.
Emily Carrington, a veterinarian from Gabriola Island, began training her hyline chickens last year initially for egg production. However, her efforts soon evolved into a unique training regimen aimed at teaching the chickens to recognize magnetic letters and numbers.
Carrington described the training process to the Nanaimo News Bulletin, stating, “Their job was to only peck the number or letter that I taught them to peck and ignore the other ones. Even if I add a whole bunch of other letters that aren’t the letter they are supposed to peck, they will just peck the letter that I trained them to peck.”
Inspired by their progress, Carrington decided to attempt a Guinness World Records title for the most tricks performed by a chicken in one minute, involving all her chickens in the endeavor.
Among them, Lacy emerged as the standout performer, successfully identifying 6 different letters, numbers, and colors within the allotted minute. This achievement prompted Guinness World Records to establish a new category specifically for Lacy: the most identifications by a chicken in one minute.
Carrington, who documents her chickens’ training on her YouTube channel “The Thinking Chicken,” expressed her satisfaction with the recognition Lacy received, highlighting the intelligence of chickens as often underestimated. “The chicken is a very underestimated animal,” she noted, “and I think if you could stop to think the chicken is a smart animal … you could maybe look at other animals and think ‘Maybe they’re smarter than I thought.’
Lacy’s accomplishment not only underscores the intelligence of chickens but also sheds light on the potential cognitive abilities of animals beyond traditional perceptions. This recognition in the Guinness World Records celebrates both Lacy’s remarkable skills and the innovative training methods employed by Carrington.
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