9 Fun Facts About a Chicken’s Eyesight

The more commonplace anything is, the more likely we are to take it for granted. It can be food, art, and even animals. Especially animals! Livestock species like chickens are so commonplace that they barely get any attention and admiration as the amazing creatures that they are.

In reality, chickens really are fascinating, inside and out. One of the most interesting things about them is their eyesight.

If you’ve ever stopped to ponder what’s going on behind those golden eyes, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading and I’ll tell you nine fun and useful facts about your chickens’ eyesight.

A Chicken’s Daytime Eyesight Is Very Good Overall

Chickens see very much like humans do: light enters through the cornea and then stimulates cells at the back of the eye that detect light. From there, the brain assembles an image. Boom, vision!

But a chicken’s vision has some remarkable qualities, namely they have acute daytime eyesight. This is because they have a high concentration of cones in their eyes.

These photoreceptor cells, specifically the ones responsible for daytime visual fidelity and perception, provide chickens with remarkably good clarity, and perceptiveness for fine, small details, and even the subtlest movements.

Have you ever seen a chicken standing still in the yard or run, only to suddenly pounce and strike at a bug or worm moving unseen on or under the ground? There’s no question that the bird saw something that you didn’t!

This excellent sensitivity to movement and overall high-definition vision gives chickens a big advantage against predators in the daytime. Most of the time, an alert adult chicken will see a predator coming before it’s in position to strike.

Chickens See More Colors Than We Do!

Hands down one of the most fascinating elements about a chicken’s eyes is the fact that they are tetrachromatic. This means they see four wavelengths of light, and correspondingly they see four base colors: they see red, green, and blue just like people do, but they also see UV light!

This is a far cry from the common and woefully erroneous assertion that chickens see in black and white…

Chickens are like all birds in that the ability to perceive and detect ultraviolet light lets them see colors we can’t even imagine, and it’s difficult for us to even formulate how the world looks to them.

The interaction of ultraviolet light on different surfaces certainly allows them to distinguish better what they are looking at, and this means that a chicken’s feathers might look even more spectacular to them than they do to us. This could help them identify mates or rivals, and tell different breeds apart like we can.

More than that, this ability to perceive ultraviolet light will likely help them spot predators and food even quicker.

Chickens Have a 300° Field of Vision

Chickens are prey animals, and like most prey animals, they need a wide field of vision to help them keep an eye on their surroundings and spot predators that are trying to ambush them. Most chicken breeds accordingly have a field of view that is around 300°.

This wide visual field, combined with the high independent mobility of their eyeballs, allows these birds to see nearly all around them without moving their head, and a quick turn from one side or the other will allow them to see directly behind them as needed.

As you probably already noticed, this means that it is quite difficult to sneak up on a chicken that isn’t fast asleep or in the dark.

Healthy Chickens Only Have a Few Eye Colors

A healthy chicken will have eyes that are either yellow, amber, gold, orange, or some shade of red. That’s it. Chicks all have black or very dark brown eyes that will change color as they mature.

This is enough variety to make chickens individual and beautiful according to their breed standards, but unique eye colors are not a good thing most of the time.

For instance, any chicken that has pale pink eyes is likely an albino.

Likewise, any birds that have striking blue, green, or grayish eyes might be remarkable to unknowing owners on social media, but they almost invariably indicate serious health problems like Marek’s disease; a viral infection that is most often fatal and can result in blindness.

Another possible cause of pale eye color is lymphomatosis…

If you notice that any of your birds suddenly have pale eyes, it doesn’t mean your bird is special: it means they are sick and need a vet, and possibly contagious so you are wise to isolate them!

Chickens Have Pretty Good Eyesight at a Distance

Have you ever wondered how good your chickens are at discerning things at a distance? It turns out they are pretty sharp, though I would certainly not call them eagle-eyed!

Chickens give up some visual acuity at longer distances, but notably, their eyesight remains incredibly sensitive to movement even at extended ranges. Up close, chickens have super-sharp, clear detailed vision.

This makes sense because sensing movement, especially sudden, explosive movement, at a distance is adequate to warn chickens that a predator is closing in or to locate missing flock mates.

Up close, that clarity will help them find juicy bugs and other tiny bits of food in the grass or dirt that they are scratching through.

Chickens Have Poor Night Vision

So far I’ve done a pretty good job of praising chickens’ eyesight generally, but for every strength there is bound to be a weakness. The weakness of a chicken’s eyesight is their night vision. Or I should say, the near total lack thereof!

Chickens have poor night vision, and this is because they have a proportionate lack of rods, the photoreceptor cells that help eyes see in the dark, compared to the abundance of cones.

Just how bad is a chicken’s eyesight at night? I’ll put it to you this way; they are nearly blind unless they have a significant source of ambient light to help them see.

This is the reason why chickens always head for their coop or another safe roosting location as the Sun starts to get low in the sky.

Unlike ducks and waterfowl which can see and are indeed often active at night, chickens become extremely vulnerable to predators in times of low or no light.

In fact, they’re so helpless at night that they usually just hunker down where they happen to be.

Most chickens won’t move at night at all if outside the coop: they easily become disoriented in the dark, and if you don’t come along to pick them up and pop them into the coop they’ll be waiting – and hoping – for sunrise.

Hopefully you find them before a predator does!

Chickens Don’t Have Eyelashes

Considering how reliant they are on their eyes, you might be surprised to learn that chickens do not have eyelashes to help keep their eyeballs safe from dust and debris, and also provide a little bit of early warning if something is about to poke the eye.

Chickens lack eyelashes entirely, though they do have eyelids that can close normally and indeed very quickly in order to protect the eye from debris or impact.

Chickens Have a Second Eyelid

What might really blow your mind is that chickens actually have a second set of eyelids, properly called a nictitating membrane.

This second, inner membrane opens and closes horizontally instead of vertically like their actual eyelids, and is a multi-purpose structure that helps to moisten the eye, wipe away dust, and, most importantly, allow chickens to see out when they are blinking — it is translucent!

The process of closing and opening the nictitating membrane happens incredibly quickly, literally in a blink.

If you focus on your birds and notice that their blink looks a little bit different from one moment to the next that’s why; they’re likely closing their actual eyelids and then their nictitating membrane.

Chickens Can Sleep with One Eye Open!

Have you ever been so nervous, anxious, or fearful you had to sleep with one eye open? Whether you felt that way or not, you couldn’t because that’s pretty much impossible but it’s not impossible for chickens!

Chickens, like most other birds, can actually attain real sleep with one eye open. And it’s not some quirk of physiology: the eye that’s open is still alert to potential danger!

Chickens can do this because of a phenomenon known as unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. This very literally means that one half of their brain will rest and get actual sleep, while the other remains mostly alert and awake and can rouse the chicken into action instantaneously.

You won’t always see your chickens resting with one eye open. Birds that are safe and feel secure will usually get genuine shut-eye inside the coop.

But if they’ve been under constant stress or threat, don’t be surprised to see your chickens staring back at you with one eye if you check on them at night!