Ambassadors for the farm

I work at a land grant university where food production is a major concern.  We have multiple annual demonstrations and shows concerning various aspects of agriculture and the research we conduct.  My job is to attract kids, usually through petting zoos and like.  Critters usually brought to pet are crawdads, tadpoles, big biting insects and sometimes really big fishes.  This year trained chickens, juveniles about 12 weeks old were used.  Two are birds being trained to come by voice command which they do.  A gang of four were taken to a festival on campus to the "fairgrounds" and set loose near my usual attraction.  Each time a small group was exposed to the usual round of smaller wildlife in the petting zoo, a chaser was made of calling name my trained chickens.  One, sometimes two, would come cutting through crowd and fly up into my arm.  We could even get birds to fly up into arms of kids that never came  into contact with any type of bird prior.  Eduardo and sister Sally were stars of show.  They (birds) even impressed a couple old timers that raised chickens commercially.  Once satiated, the chickens would even allow kids to pet them.  It was not just a situation where chickens fed from hand but otherwise avoided contact.  Sadly, one of the chickens ate my walking sticks while I was working with a group of kids.  This use of chickens will be used in years to come.

Spring Feild Days with school children.  Trained games used to introduce poultry.  Preparation began nearly year ago.

Birds prepped for loading into hauler with minimal stress.


Eduardo calling plays in huddle.  He also checks for clean hands.


Eduardo in middle of scrum.  Kids were litterally crushing me.


Eduardo in dialog with little boy.


Eduardo performing strength test on budding soccer star.  Mother insuring test is passed.


End of day and ready to walk home.


Yes, we made it back and no more darn mealworms!

Yes, Eduardo (rooster in second to last image) allowed roughly ten people in succession over 20 minutes to support him unrestrained on their arms.  He preened and talked the whole time.

Kids kept trying to catch Spud (chick) causing Sallie (hen) to get riled up a bit, but no floggings occured.

Eduardo and Sallie (adults) are American games.  Colortypes - Eduardo is brown breasted brown-red and Sallie is female version of black breasted red (heterozygous for brown breasted brown-red).  They are full siblings.  Chick was sired by American dominique.  She (chick) is smarter than pure dom in that she trains faster.