Abstract
THAT chickens have a social awareness of each other is well known. This is not a neutral awareness, however, since social orders or peck orders are developed early in life.Guhl (1953) has reviewed thoroughly the available knowledge concerning social behavior in the fowl. He found significant correlations between social rank and egg production, and also between number of eggs produced and the frequency of feeding. Guhl (1956) stated that pullets of low social rank take longer to reach sexual maturity and that birds in a socially unstable flock have a slower growth rate than birds in a stable flock. Guhl, Collias and Allee (1945) showed that mating behavior was related to social hierarchy in small flocks of White Leghorns and a later paper (Guhl and Warren, 1946) demonstrated that the number of offspring sired by cockerels was related to social dominance. Tindell and Craig (1959) have shown that six …
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