4 ms·

I imagine that chickens had to adapt to the cold much much much faster than humans had to.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Yes, and I get the advantage of clothes :-) They don't even seem that bothered by it. If you put a heater in the coop they don't make a point of perching near it, for example. They hate the snow like it's lava though.
churchillracist 6y ago
> imagine that chickens had to adapt to the cold They already had that adaptation. Chickens are members of the fowl family which are all homeothermic animals, meaning that they maintain their own body temperature. Chickens thermoregulate their body temperatures through their respiratory system. Heat is lost by the bird as sensible heat directly to the atmosphere when the temperature gradient is sufficiently great and as insensible heat by the evaporation of water from the respiratory system and skin when the temperature gradient is less but relative humidity is low. The layer of fat usually found under the skin plus the coat of feathers provide very good protection from low temperature and it is unlikely that birds other than young chickens will die of hypothermia. For a constant deep body temperature to be maintained, heat production must equal heat loss.
throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
I live in the UK and I am amazed that date palms do well here, in a country with much higher rainfall and it does get colder than the middle east. Also agaves seem quite happy (what tequila is made out of. What's actually more surprising than cold tolerance is that water tolerance; desert-y plants tend to be adapted to be needing periods where their roots are dry for long periods. Let them stand with wet feet and many desert plants get very upset. I guess the middle east was wetter even in roman times, so perhaps that answers part of that. To flip the chicken question around a bit, it's perhaps odd that chickens can cope not with the cold but with their native heat so well, what with wearing a full-body, heavy down jacket all the time in their native tropical jungle.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Chickens molt! They rid themselves of the feathers and down periodically.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    And then they grow them back again I presume. In the middle of a jungle forest. It seems odd.
- smichel17 6y ago
  My understanding is that they lose a lot of water through their skin. Not a deep enough understanding to know whether saying "chickens sweat a lot" is accurate, but I imagine in either case the evaporation helps them keep cool.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  Bird feathers can trap air inside and can be raised all together in a second making it work like a sponge. A better analogy could be wearing a flask
koheripbal 6y ago
That depends which humans. We are not one monolithic gene pool. Human diversity means that more recent migrations of humans had less time to adjust to their new climates. If you compare, say Inuit, Nordic, and native Siberian populations, to subsequent equatorial populations to higher latitudes, if you could find instances of low interbreeding, I wonder if we'd see certain genetic adaptations missing.

Yes, and I get the advantage of clothes :-) They don't even seem that bothered by it. If you put a heater in the coop they don't make a point of perching near it, for example. They hate the snow like it's lava though.

churchillracist 6y ago

> imagine that chickens had to adapt to the cold They already had that adaptation. Chickens are members of the fowl family which are all homeothermic animals, meaning that they maintain their own body temperature. Chickens thermoregulate their body temperatures through their respiratory system. Heat is lost by the bird as sensible heat directly to the atmosphere when the temperature gradient is sufficiently great and as insensible heat by the evaporation of water from the respiratory system and skin when the temperature gradient is less but relative humidity is low. The layer of fat usually found under the skin plus the coat of feathers provide very good protection from low temperature and it is unlikely that birds other than young chickens will die of hypothermia. For a constant deep body temperature to be maintained, heat production must equal heat loss.

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago

I live in the UK and I am amazed that date palms do well here, in a country with much higher rainfall and it does get colder than the middle east. Also agaves seem quite happy (what tequila is made out of. What's actually more surprising than cold tolerance is that water tolerance; desert-y plants tend to be adapted to be needing periods where their roots are dry for long periods. Let them stand with wet feet and many desert plants get very upset. I guess the middle east was wetter even in roman times, so perhaps that answers part of that. To flip the chicken question around a bit, it's perhaps odd that chickens can cope not with the cold but with their native heat so well, what with wearing a full-body, heavy down jacket all the time in their native tropical jungle.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Chickens molt! They rid themselves of the feathers and down periodically.
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  And then they grow them back again I presume. In the middle of a jungle forest. It seems odd.
smichel17 6y ago
My understanding is that they lose a lot of water through their skin. Not a deep enough understanding to know whether saying "chickens sweat a lot" is accurate, but I imagine in either case the evaporation helps them keep cool.
pvaldes 6y ago
Bird feathers can trap air inside and can be raised all together in a second making it work like a sponge. A better analogy could be wearing a flask

koheripbal 6y ago

That depends which humans. We are not one monolithic gene pool. Human diversity means that more recent migrations of humans had less time to adjust to their new climates. If you compare, say Inuit, Nordic, and native Siberian populations, to subsequent equatorial populations to higher latitudes, if you could find instances of low interbreeding, I wonder if we'd see certain genetic adaptations missing.