Canary chickens know what to expect outside before they even hatch. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge, the mothers of this species communicate with their chicks before their birth through hormonal messages .
As explained by zoologists in the journal Science , the message received inside the egg determines the future behavior of the young . Thus, chickens with generous parents will develop an instinct to demand large amounts of food, while those warned of the "stinginess" of their parents will be born already accustomed to asking for little.
During the research, Rebecca Kilnery and her team found that if the chicks heed the message of the maternal hormones in the egg, they gain weight faster despite receiving little food from their parents and save unnecessary efforts to demand more food. "This work changes the way of understanding the prenatal environment in birds, " says Kilnery.
This type of behavior is common to other animals, although the message changes. In the case of field mice , for example, mothers tell their young when they are going to be born , so that they develop a thicker coat if it is in winter.
