Taming Chicks

[Davidally122]

I think one problem is with my brooder I always have to come from above. It's a watermelon box so there's no being at their level yet. They come a running for mealworms but try to touch them? Nope Nope Nope! So Im going to be patient and continue working with them, using some of these ideas. Thanks for all the input!

 

[springchicken10]

Chook, I really appreciate your posts. When I saw the other person's question about taming I was hoping you had answered. I now have 4 one week old gorgeous little chicks. Of course they are afraid of me. The way it all went was: left them with Mom but couldn't find a practical way to keep them from escaping the chain link fence. So today (they are just one week old) we caught them, put them in a large tall cardboard box lined with newspaper and took them inside to "their " room. I put two regular electric bulbs above them, about 28" away. What's good is, they're safe. But what's bad is I can't get to them from the side because I certainly can't get in the box. But yelling though they are, I've been picking them up one at a time, petting and talking to them. When they have been quiet for two or three minutes I put them back. Any comments or ideas? Thanks!

 

[chooks4life]

@Davidally122: You could try making it a one-at-a-time opportunity, i.e. one hand holds a small amount of treats enclosed so it's not free-pickings-for-all, and the other hand sits open in front of it so the chick brave enough to get treats stands on that open hand to reach them. Gradually they should get used to the idea. Otherwise, when it's free for all, they may view it as a bit of a contest to get treats before they are grabbed, with one eye on the goods and one eye on you.

@springchicken10: thank you and I'm glad I might have been helpful. I think from the sounds of it, you've got your work cut out for you since they've bonded to their mother (who may not have trained them to view you as a benefactor), they've gotten used to escaping and fleeing you, and now they're worrying about where their mother is. So there's a bit of preconditioning to work against instead of just starting with chicks that had never bonded.

It's good they're already being somewhat accepting of you. I think if you keep up with gentle regular handling they should tame, and it's important they come to view you as a source of good things, so treats are helpful. I would try to build or buy them an outside enclosure asap that will allow you to be in there with them and keep them from escaping. For now, the box is good, but any training you do could be undone once they go out into a larger area and can see wider horizons, and their flight instinct is activated. Them getting used to viewing and interacting with your hand and arm, face etc is not necessarily going to translate into them viewing your whole body in its normal movements as something that's un-threatening.

It's good to get to them from the side but not crucial; after all other chickens attack them from the side and so do many ground based predators. The most important thing is that their final impression of each handling session is a positive one. How it starts is not as important as how it is in the interim and how it ends. Some people put out a lot of nervous energy and this unsettles animals, as sensitive as they tend to be to body language we are not always aware of. I would do much as you're already doing, and watch how they react to my body language and movements and change whatever I'm doing that startles them.

If they relax in your hands, you're on your way. Often the only way I had to handle my chicks when young was to grab them from above, and they settle very fast when they realize they are securely held and are familiar with how it goes, so they know they'll be released in good order, possibly with some food in their crops to boot. The food helps but isn't necessary.

If you can, get live bugs that you know aren't toxic whether by nature or by chemical application. Grasshoppers are good. You can buy live crickets from many pet shops if you don't have any grasshoppers or the ability to catch them. Having something live and kicking in your fingers to offer them, while saying something similar to what the mother would ('chook, chook, chook' is what we say, lol) can very quickly train them to come to you and jump on your lap or in your hand to obtain what you're offering. They'll come to view you as a mother. If you don't have bugs you can try hard boiled egg tat's been chopped up, put in a dish that only allows them to eat one at a time, and make it conditional that they stand or sit in your hand to eat.

If you watch a good rooster with a new flock that he's meeting for the first time, he doesn't just go jumping on them; he stays a certain distance away, and busily finds food and calls them for it. He gets them to come to him, and often they're not too keen to just take food from a stranger. He makes sure they're aware he's looking out for them before he tries to become more familiar. Even grown hens who are familiar with roosters will still often be a little suspicious of his motives as he offers food, so he'll just keep offering food and not applying pressure to the situation. He'll hold the food, respectfully and motionlessly let them take it, and once a hen takes the food he turns away in as nonthreatening a manner as possible to continue looking for food, and repeats this until the hens are of the mentality that he's food-hunting with them rather than looking at them. They'll go from watching him to watching what he's watching. Only then does he start to court.

This works with chicks if you have bits of termite mound or something to hide bugs under or in, from which you can gradually produce treats. So they'll be viewing you as a mother hunting for them and will fearlessly congregate around you to get into the feast with you. This gets them quickly used to even rapid atypical movements from you. With chicks we'd let the mothers raise, we would tame them at a later date by bringing treats and engaging in some mock food-hunting with them. You can tap the ground or food with a finger to give them the impression your hand is a mother's head bashing a bug to death for them, as this works with the more suspicious ones, especially if you pick up and drop the food often. They can't help themselves, often, they find the motion too enticing and have to come and see. It's always easier if you are the provider of food and it's not on tap, so they're always reminded to come to you for good things every day.

Anyway, there are many methods to train and tame your chicks, and you should experiment and see what gets the best results. Not all chicks are the same and we have to work within whatever environment we have so being adjustable is always necessary. It helps to watch how chickens approach one another as adults in order to communicate their intentions. They have very ostentatious body language to impress upon the other that they have either negative or positive intentions. Some people automatically have the right body language, others automatically have the wrong body language, some learn, others never do, but all can have tame chickens. Even if you have body language that frightens them, once they know your intent, they can come to accept it as just being the way you are. Once the chicks know what you mean they will trust that, and it will take a good few negative instances to convince them otherwise. Best wishes.

 

[springchicken10]

Hey Chook,
Guess what? I laid my hand palm side up on the bottom of their box with some crushed people cereal in my palm. It took less than 5 minutes for them to come out of the corner and walk all over my hand, peck the food, let me raise them a few inches above the bottom of the box, all the while speaking English to them. I told them everything was okay, they were good girls, good little chickens, come on have some more, that's nice etc...chicken baby talk. They have already shown great variation in personality - in 5 minutes! The smallest one is the bravest and will jump on my hand even with no food in it. The largest one (I think he will be a rooster)comes out of the corner but won't eat out of my hand yet ...just fascinating.

 

[chooks4life]

They sound pretty tame already. Quite easy to go from there, no 'baby steps' needed then. Best wishes.

 

[Davidally122]

Yes I had one of my little australorps out this morning. She settled down and took a mealworm from me! First time, very encouraged.

 

[chooks4life]

Good to hear they're going well. It'll be good for the flock and you to have peace and trust.

Stronger measures are really only required with stock who are descended from recent ancestors who came from unkind owners; in these cases sometimes it's 'baby steps' all the way for a while. But in instances where they came from stock that had no real fear of humans, your work is almost done, all you need to do is confirm to them that you are friend not foe.

I do talk to my chooks normally, 'in English' as you say, but when taming skitzy babies I often mimic their mother in syllable structure because they understand quicker. But babies that are already pretty tame would already be used to human speech of the more normal sort... It depends on how tame they are.

Even after taming the adults I've received from bad backgrounds, their offspring would go through a period where they acted out their parent's fears, despite being raised tame, and taming themselves again without any extra effort on my part. Ancestral memories are stronger and more relevant than our limited information on chicken mentalities accounts for. If the adults are tame you're most of the way there with the offspring, whether existing or yet to come. It's never too late to tame a chicken, and old dogs do learn new tricks, as they say. Best wishes.

 

[springchicken10]

Chooks, I didn't realize you've been taming adult chickens. I would think that would be very difficult. As for my week-olds, I have no idea how their parents have been treated because they were hatched from eggs by my Silkie hen, who is not their mother. She is not fond of being picked up but you can pet her when she's broody. Her adult daughter, tho, is a wild woman. Raised here, treated well, but not very tame.

 

[chooks4life]

Sounds similar to a hen I had... Her mother is great, very wise little hen, but one of her daughters earned herself the name 'Savage'.... Ended up asphyxiating on a blade of grass because she was so consumed with her anger that she attacked while eating and breathed in her food. Hateful little thing. Beautiful, but hated humans. No reason either.

I called her 'Savage' because of all the birds I've had (including an aggressive rooster, geese, turkeys etc) she caused the most damage. Only a little bantam mix, but vicious to the core. She would grab onto your flesh and bite and rip, twisting her head to try to remove as much flesh as possible, biting as hard as possible. It was like being attacked with those little wire cutters they sell in hobby sets. My hands are quite tough and hard since I do wire twitching by hand and other rough work without gloves, so she learnt to bite on between the fingers. Utterly nasty thing, unprovoked, never had a cause. Her mother produced other good daughters, with other roosters, so I blame her father in this case. He was a human-averse chook who earned himself the name Spack.

Taming adult chooks isn't really harder than taming chicks except it generally stretches out over a much longer time. They need to unlearn some traumatic things as well as learn new peaceful things. For example I tamed one lot, from some seriously nasty folks, via extension... I let them watch me around other chooks for a whole year, didn't do anything to them to speak of, and by the end of the year they tamed of their own accord, having seen how chickens were treated around my place. What you do is as important as what you don't do.

 

[springchicken10]

You need to write a book. I mean it. Thanks again!