Hi all! I posted this same thing in the chicken behavior forum and thought this forum may have some good input too. This may sound odd, but my daughter has a science fair and she needs to have a project. It needs to be a project that poses, and answers a question and documents the progress/findings, etc. She REALLY wants to do something with the chickens - we are very new to chickens - have 9 total now - 3 confirmed cockerels and 6 we think are pullets (so far). I cannot for the life of me think of what we can do. If they were laying then that would make it easier to do something with the eggs, like nutrition, etc....but ours are about 13 weeks now. Obviously it cannot jepordize the health or welfare of our little ones, but there has to be something she can do regarding chickens?!? Does ANYONE have any ideas?? She has to turn in her proposal tomorrow. She's in the 5th grade Thanks in advance for any input!!
Could it have something to do with what the chicks eat? ie what treat, scratch component they like best? Does it vary by size/ how she cuts up apples ie? If you can get their feed in pellet or crumble which they would rather eat? Color, would they rather eat out of a certain color bowl. If you dye their mash/food with food coloring would they prefer a certain color?
How about what it was like raising them from what ever age you got them at. The responsibilities. The changes in their feathers. Sexing them and differences in behavior between the 2 sexes. And then the future of what to do with roosters.
First off you need to go to youtube and type in "dumb chicken tricks" You will be surprised by all the things you can teach a chicken. There is one where you can teach one to pick out a certain card. There is one that shows a chicken picking out a certain color eraser. It is very easy to teach must chicken tricks bet she would have a blast doing it too.
I suggest exploring how choice items like mealworms impact effort birds will invest eating. To do this right your daughter needs to get involved directly here. Once hypothesis is developed a proper experimental design must be developed. I am trained in statistics and conduct behavioral experiments from time to time.
