Any one into teaching their chickens tricks?

[trinitymare]

I'm going to try to get mine to do a few tricks but I'm having a hard time thinking of things for them to do and it would be fun to start a post and keep it going for people who would be interested.

I used Clicker training


"Clicker training is the process of training an animal using a clicker as a marker for behavior that will earn positive reinforcement. The clicker is a small mechanical noisemaker."


Anyone else what to try to teach theirs along with me?

I could help get you started with targeting and building a line of basic communication with your chicken friend.

We all know they are capable of learning when we call them for food to come and i've seen trick chickens at zoo's and such.


You will need a few Supplies most can be found around the house.

A target.

Could be anything, a playing card or a plant marker works well.

A clicker

Can be found at just about any pet shop for a few bucks.

Chicken feed or treats.

Mine go nuts for blueberrys

A cup to hold the treats in for easy of feeding.

I used a cooking measuring cup.

First step......

Is loading your clicker, this means you teach the chicken the sound of the clicker means he is going to get food.

This is a most important step in triaing, so you feed the chicken out of a cup and every time he peaks for food you click, give him one pick out of the cup and then take away the cup.

Repeat reapeat repeat.

Next step

Is you target.

instead of the cup the chicken has to peak at a tagert, I use a plant marker.

The is the also important and the first time you are teaching him a learned Behavior as he has to do something in order to get the food.

So you try to get him to pick the target, if he just don't get it you can click hen he looks at the target an little sign that he give the target should be rewarded.

Then you get him targeting on the target.

Hold it up and to the left and the right he should peak at it, each peak gets a reward!

putting it on the ground and not holdiong it is the next step as well as fallowing it around.

Once theses are set your ready to teach your chickens tricks such as picking out the correct card every time or following his target throw a course up ladders jumping thow hoops, jumping on your arm up on stumps, pulling a strinf to ring a bell. playing on a toy pianio and so on.



Supplies

I'm going to see if they will let me make a video as I started two new ones this after noon.

 

[chickenbottom]

i want to see the video badly i would love to try this with some of my chickens

 

[azelgin]

I'm going to teach mine not to crap in the garage!

 

[trinitymare]

I've been clicker training horses for a while but I'm new to training chickens.

I'm not that clear on the video so might be hard to follow.

But it's the start how far you want to take it, their is a neat video on your tube of chicker trainer getting chicken to to a course in five days.

This is pretty neat I want to build this... and have my chickens run throw something like this.

 

[trinitymare]

Quote:
Good luck with that lol of course my friends horse is potty trained so I've seen it all!
everything is possiable if you have enough time with a clicker!

 

[LittleChickenRacingTeam]

Darn, I was hoping this thread was about a chook performing magic tricks.

I have trained 1 chicken of mine to pull a chariot down a 50ft track while racing against 3 other birds.

I have another chicken that can fly a kite.

But none of mine can do tricks. Let me know how that works out for you.

 

[chickenbottom]

wow great video i just want to know how they got the chickens to do it in the first place i just tried shapes with clairese and she got full on snacks i clicked and let her get a peck did it over and over and over till you cant say over anymore i just dont understand

 

[trinitymare]

Quote:
Did you get to targeting?

Sounds like you got the first step which is loading the clicker, next you need to get them to peak at a object.

Starting with shapes let say a heart, you would hold the heart in front of her and have her peak it, then you would click and reward over and over once you can move the heart and have her follow it you would set it on the ground and if she even looks at it you click and reward any tiny try on her part!

You have to train yourself to see the try and reward so you can shape the Behavior. this gets the animal thinking what it did and keep trying to repeat it.

it will try things that are not correct but as long as it show intrest you click and reward any try such at looking at the obect.

once it trys harder you only click the 100% correct responce and if you lose them you go back a step.

then the next step is to put the heart with a round object and only click when they peak at the heart once thats 100%

you can move them around and the chicken will only peak at the heart when mixed with other shapes.

but this takes time.

 

[chickenbottom]

Quote:
Did you get to targeting?

Sounds like you got the first step which is loading the clicker, next you need to get them to peak at a object.

Starting with shapes let say a heart, you would hold the heart in front of her and have her peak it, then you would click and reward over and over once you can move the heart and have her follow it you would set it on the ground and if she even looks at it you click and reward any tiny try on her part!

You have to train yourself to see the try and reward so you can shape the Behavior. this gets the animal thinking what it did and keep trying to repeat it.

it will try things that are not correct but as long as it show intrest you click and reward any try such at looking at the obect.

once it trys harder you only click the 100% correct responce and if you lose them you go back a step.

then the next step is to put the heart with a round object and only click when they peak at the heart once thats 100%

you can move them around and the chicken will only peak at the heart when mixed with other shapes.

but this takes time.

ya i tried with a circle she payed looked at it and i rewarded her but never pecked it

 

[texaschickmama]

I taught "Brownie" to play dead.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this photo!!

Brownie sleeps like this in my hand everytime I pick him/her up!! Sweetest chicken I have. She is a 2 1/2 mo old Serama.