Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Mother of Chaos]

Blissing out

 

[Vulpes vulpes]

Yes I see a difference in chicks raised in a brooder or by a hen. The hen raised are predator and whats good to eat savvy quicker.

It goes beyond learning what to eat and when to run or hide, there's even more fundamental developmental milestones during chickhood -- milestones that are almost always absent in incubated chicks. I believe the two that are most commonly missed (and most important) are imprinting and occlusion experiences.

Imprinting is self evident; it helps embryos and freshly hatched chicks learn not only who mom is, but who/what they themselves are and how to recognize individuals. I do not believe that the knowledge of "I am a chicken" is innate, rather it is learned early in development.

Occlusion experiences occur when chicks (starting around day 10 after hatch) deliberately venture out of line of sight of mom, specifically so they can figure out how to get back to her. At this age, finding their way to an object they cannot see helps develop their navigational "software," which carries over into adulthood. I suspect that many instances of adult chickens having silly "glitches" when navigating can be explained at least in part by missing this milestone. That's just a guess though.

It is important to mention that, while a broody hen will always outperform us in things like this, there's ways to provide these experiences as a human keeper. For example, using a large brooder and, starting at day 10, adding visual barriers for the chicks to navigate around will provide them with occlusion experiences.

Also, I don't have the sources for this on hand, but I can go find them if anyone would like to read them