Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

The red junglefowl is known as the common ancestor to all modern chicken breeds and still lives in the wild in south east Asia. In the wild, the junglefowl live in small flocks with one dominant rooster, some subordinate rooster and a vaying number of subordinate hens with their chickens. The dominance is established by the peck order. This can be seen by one individual giving an aggressive peck directed towards the other individuals head or frontal part of the body, while the other individual tries to escape from further pecks. This kind of pecking i especially seen between the hens, while the roosters more often are encoutered in fighting.
Since the junglefowl still exist today and we also have several domestic breeds of chicken makes them suitable for domestication research.

In studies which have compared the behaviour of junglefowl and modern breeds it has been found that in a fearful situation the fear response in higher in junglefowl, they also have a lower food intake and are more synchronized in their behaviour.