Chickens Prefer Foxes: Scientists Find Poultry Favor Good-Looking People

Just in case your New Year’s resolution has not already put you on the defensive . . .  now we are being judged by the chickens. There is an interesting article in National Geographic with some surprising facts about chickens including that chickens favor good looking people over not good looking people.  While it is unlikely that the the idea of fat-shaming poultry will get vegans to change their dietary preferences, it does raise the rather provocative idea of looks being a bona fide occupational criteria.  Could Perdue join Hooters in looking for good-looking employees?  Ok, probably not.

There are some other surprising facts in the article.

First, hens are “photo-stimulated,” requiring light to produce eggs.

Second, hens do not need roosters to lay eggs. They are only needed for eggs that produce chicks.

Third, and this one is really wild, the color of chicken eggs coincides with the color of the birds’ earlobes. Thus, white earlobed chickens often make white eggshells while red earlobed chicken produce . . . no not red eggs (which would be really cool) . . . brown eggs.

Fourth, chickens can recognize up to 30 other individual chickens.

However the most surprising fact was this: “A 2002 paper found that chickens have the same preference for certain human faces as do humans, ‘keying in on things like symmetry’ in features—one of the subconscious measures of attractiveness.”

Studies showed that chicken responded more to symmetrical faces often associated with better looks.

In other words, chickens really are as shallow as . . .  well . . .  we are.

Worse yet, there is yet another thing that Rob Lowe can do better than I can.