Gabriola Island, Canada - Whether you like to eat chicken or turkey, you can usually rest assured that you're consuming something quite unintelligent. For Lacey the reading chicken, though, this isn't even close to being true.

Chickens are not generally smart animals, nor are they particularly talented in anything other than eating and laying eggs.

Yet, for this Canadian chicken, scoring achievements and animal world records has become a true talent.

Lacey is one of the most extraordinary chickens in the world and has achieved far more than any chicken can usually even dream of achieving.

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She's so talented, in fact, that she has even taught to read!

The training of chickens is not usually something one would talk about. Apart from, perhaps, the unethical sport of cockfighting, these feathered fellows rarely get a second look unless they are producing eggs or getting stuffed full of lemon, butter, and rosemary on their inevitable path to your oven.

Yet, for one Canadian bird, none of this can be genuinely said. Born on Gabriola Island in the state of British Columbia, Lacey is widely regarded as the world's smartest chicken. Why might this be, we hear you ask? Well, because she can read, she can count, and she can perform a bunch of different tricks.

Lacey was raised by veterinarian Emily Carrington, who had the desire to push back against those who claim that chickens are some of the dumbest animals out there. To do so she played memory games, slowly working towards getting her chickens to be capable of recognizing letters and numbers.

She was highly successful as well, at least if you look at Lacey, who is capable of recognizing a bunch of different letters and numbers. This was where she managed to secure her first world record, when Lacey managed to identify six numbers, letters, and colors, in only one minute. The precise reward was for the most identifications by a chicken in one minute.

Carrington has continued to record Lacey's various achievements and post them on YouTube, where she has become known as "The Thinking Chicken," and racks up thousands of views. It's endlessly entertaining, as the audience watches Lacey identify all sorts of different things.

Speaking to the Nanaimo News Bulletin, the owner said, "The chicken is a very underestimated animal and I think if you could stop to think the chicken is a smart animal... You could maybe look at other animals and think 'Maybe they're smarter than I thought.'"

Perseverance and a very talented trainer are the only real reasons behind Lacey's remarkable intelligence. In her simple life as the Gabriola Island hen, she has slowly been introduced to various letters and numbers – initially through the use of fridge magnets.

To teach Lacey, Emily Carrington introduced individual alphabet magnets and offered a treat when the right one was pecked. At the start, Lacey didn't understand a thing, but as everything progressed Carrington started to add different shapes and get her to peck on different ones.

"Their job was to only peck the number or letter that I taught them to peck and ignore the other ones," Carrington explained.

"Even if I add a whole bunch of other letters that aren't the letter they are supposed to peck, they will just peck the letter that I trained them to peck."

Reading, however, was not the only trick that Lacey was taught. Originally, it was planned that she would conclude her record attempt by throwing a ball. She ran out of time, however, and it didn't happen. Luckily, she still got to keep the world record, though they did slightly modify it.

Instead of receiving an award for the most tricks by a chicken in one minute, Guinness World Records slightly changed the title to revolve around the identification game. This is how she ended up with the reward she now holds, and Emily Carrington is no less pleased.

Lacey might be able to read, and she might be ridiculously talented, but ultimately it is her raw intelligence that is so impressive. Chickens are not usually smart enough to recognize letters, so for a chicken to be this astute is a true achievement!