I just moved to the country and finally can have a larger number of chickens. I know from past experience a couple breeds I'm interested in getting into seriously breeding and I am seeking out quality stock in those breeds. I also know quite a few breeds that I'm not big fans of and have no interest in breeding.
However, there are still a lot of breeds that interest me that I've never owned, so this spring I have placed orders form most major hatcheries getting a several of every breed I'm interested in (sexed females on any that I can). For me, temperament is the number one reason I enjoy owning chickens, so that is my first priority; functionality and aesthetics of the breed being second. I don't intend to use these as future breeding stock per say, but I do intend to use them to perhaps create cross breeds for my own enjoyment. They will also be egg layers and a gage to see which breeds on my bucket list I actually like owning and would be interested in breeding. So I will be selling probably 3/4 of the chicks I ordered after I've selected the tamest ones of each breed (or I'll sell all of a specific breed if they aren't to my liking). Around here there are no local feed stores that sell chicks so I've always found a high demand for smaller numbers of sexed female chicks, and should have an easy time selling extras.
So, since I will be having a couple hundred chicks come through my doors in the next few months I need to design a plan to gauge "tameness"... IME really tame chicks are tame from the very beginning, seeking out human attention. I have had chicks that started out wild tame down eventually, but I don't think I've ever had a chick start off super tame and then later turn wild. So I will be making my initial culling (to sell, not kill) within the first week or two. I do want to get them used to being handled to some degree, but with having larger numbers I also won't be able to handle them constantly, and moreover, I don't want to because I want to see which chicks have the genetic predisposition the be tame. I think temperament in chickens is highly heritable. I will try to hold each chick once or twice a day (all chicks equally) for X? number of days. After that, I want to do some sort of experiment to gauge the tameness of each chick. I would write it down on the chart to keep track and probably would have to be something I could repeat 2-4? times in order to see patterns of behavior and not get false positives or negatives. I think I would like to look at two factors, general friendliness (e.g. do they come up seeking attention) and also cuddliness (e.g. when held do they settle down and enjoy it or struggle to escape.)
So if you were to design a test for such an experiment, how would you "test" friendliness and cuddliness? I have a couple ideas but I'd love to hear some others. Also what age would you "test"? It may also be a two, three, four-tiered test, where they get tested for temperament at, say, 1.5 weeks, and then again at 1 month, etc. until I fell like I have kept only the very tamest hens.
Thanks! Let me know your thoughts or ideas!
However, there are still a lot of breeds that interest me that I've never owned, so this spring I have placed orders form most major hatcheries getting a several of every breed I'm interested in (sexed females on any that I can). For me, temperament is the number one reason I enjoy owning chickens, so that is my first priority; functionality and aesthetics of the breed being second. I don't intend to use these as future breeding stock per say, but I do intend to use them to perhaps create cross breeds for my own enjoyment. They will also be egg layers and a gage to see which breeds on my bucket list I actually like owning and would be interested in breeding. So I will be selling probably 3/4 of the chicks I ordered after I've selected the tamest ones of each breed (or I'll sell all of a specific breed if they aren't to my liking). Around here there are no local feed stores that sell chicks so I've always found a high demand for smaller numbers of sexed female chicks, and should have an easy time selling extras.
So, since I will be having a couple hundred chicks come through my doors in the next few months I need to design a plan to gauge "tameness"... IME really tame chicks are tame from the very beginning, seeking out human attention. I have had chicks that started out wild tame down eventually, but I don't think I've ever had a chick start off super tame and then later turn wild. So I will be making my initial culling (to sell, not kill) within the first week or two. I do want to get them used to being handled to some degree, but with having larger numbers I also won't be able to handle them constantly, and moreover, I don't want to because I want to see which chicks have the genetic predisposition the be tame. I think temperament in chickens is highly heritable. I will try to hold each chick once or twice a day (all chicks equally) for X? number of days. After that, I want to do some sort of experiment to gauge the tameness of each chick. I would write it down on the chart to keep track and probably would have to be something I could repeat 2-4? times in order to see patterns of behavior and not get false positives or negatives. I think I would like to look at two factors, general friendliness (e.g. do they come up seeking attention) and also cuddliness (e.g. when held do they settle down and enjoy it or struggle to escape.)
So if you were to design a test for such an experiment, how would you "test" friendliness and cuddliness? I have a couple ideas but I'd love to hear some others. Also what age would you "test"? It may also be a two, three, four-tiered test, where they get tested for temperament at, say, 1.5 weeks, and then again at 1 month, etc. until I fell like I have kept only the very tamest hens.
Thanks! Let me know your thoughts or ideas!
....so all us ugly people are doomed to a life without chicken love!!
