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My job for the last three summers in a (very awesome and cool) nutshell.

So many people (certain university professors included) are unaware of the fact that chickens can be “clicker-trained”, or trained using operant conditioning, let alone be taught all of these fairly complex tasks. Not only is it a great and easy enrichment activity you can do with your pet chickens if you have any, but it’s used by research laboratories all over the world to try and make important discoveries in areas like animal behaviour and neuroscience.

I’ve done/currently do both - I train my pet chickens to provide them with some physical and mental exercise, and I train laboratory chickens and turkeys for studies that try to solve pressing concerns about the welfare of farmed poultry. In my first summer, I compared the learning abilities of egg-laying hens fed diets with different nutrient levels to see if commercial diets impair brain function in these chickens. The next summer, I trained laying hens to peck a green light for a reward, while also teaching them to ignore a red light - exactly as shown in this video - to determine whether an “impulsive” personality was one of the factors contributing to aggressive feather-pecking behaviour on farms (no post about that one yet, as the results still need to be published)! And that’s just me. There are other animal behaviour & welfare labs at my university, and at universities across many countries, that use operant conditioning as a technique to objectively ask animals about their feelings, preferences, etc. The same goes for other farm animals, zoo animals, and basically any other animal used by humans - there is always scientific research going on to figure out what is best for them.

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My friend just made me feel weird for asking so now i gotta know.

If you do have a favorite bird please please tell me in the tags, i want to see some Birds!!

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Whenever I hear 9 to 5 the leghorn chicken tiktok is what I immediately think of unprompted

Edit: its this lol

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imagine your shitty landlord who you hate abducts you from your bed in the night and drops you in a saw trap where you nearly drown, then puts you up in a five star hotel with a gourmet meal, then lets you go back to your shitty apartment the next day like nothing happened.

thats her life rn

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sad!! well, theres other birds

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everyones new favorite snack. its good because its very easy to move the spoon between bird and make sure everyone gets some, and peanut butter is more challenging to steal directly out of another birds mouth before they can swallow.

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Sharkie girl

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Chick Log 6/14/23

Brown

Black

Blue

Big Spot

Little Spot

Barnevelder

Satin Silkie

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Little Spot

Barnevelder (born 6/2/23)

Satin Silkie (born 5/22/23)

Chick Log 6/6/23

Brown

Black

Blue

Big Spot

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Chick Log 6/6/23

Brown

Black

Blue

Big Spot

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Despite my doubts, Miss Kimberly hatched five perfectly healthy little peepers today, and the other two should be along in a day or two. I had no idea what colors to expect, bur we ended up with three black, one brown and one blue. No idea which one came from which egg, but they should all be olive eggers in the end.

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EARLY BEEPER ALERT

First time candling!!! All three of our barnyard mix olive eggs are growing, but Im not sure if our welsummerXameraucanas are fertilized. The two barnevelders are two days behind the others so its okay not so see anything in there yet.

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This is one of the eggs I was sure wasnt fertilized, but here it is!! Wiggling around so hard I can feel it!!! Fucking pokemon moment to me, Im crying 🥺😭🥺😭🥺

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only got to candle three eggs before a neighbors porch light turned on and made it tok bright >:(

First time candling!!! All three of our barnyard mix olive eggs are growing, but Im not sure if our welsummerXameraucanas are fertilized. The two barnevelders are two days behind the others so its okay not so see anything in there yet.