Newbie Training Question

[robinwiththechickens]

I've never trained anything in my life...I always end up getting trained so I have no idea what I'm doing here.

I've been trying to get my 6-week old chicks to hop up in my lap when I sit in my lawn chair in their run. I found out weeks ago that noodles are their favorite treat, so now they only get a noodle if they come up on my lap. After 2 weeks of this I tried today sitting down without the noodles and when they jumped up they gave me the most disappointed disapproving look and immediately hopped down.

My question is how do I keep them coming back if I don't have treats every time?

 

[scratch'n'peck]

Oooh a psych 101 question-intermintent reinforcement of the desired behavior is advised. In other words give them the spag at random times. Actually I would start by having them jump up, them show them the spag treat, then tell them if they want it they need to stay for a while for some petting and then start increasing the time before giving them a treat. The next step would be decreasing the frequency of the treats.