Teaching Chicks "Chicken Skills"

[Kalobis]

Hello Again,

I searched but couldn't find an answer to this, but apologies if it has been covered.

We are planning to get day-old chicks and raise them in a brooder. These are our first chicks, so we don't have any adult hens around. Will we need to teach them chicken skills? Like how to scratch, roost, etc., as their broody mothers would? Or is that intuitive for them?

I understand we will need to dip their little beaks in the water to teach them how to drink and other things like that. This is more about 'life skills' for lack of a better term.

Thanks in advance,

- K

 

[SueT]

Showing them where to drink and eat, yes, but they will figure out everything else. Put some little branches or other small things on the brooder floor to climb on. (After a few days.) They have a natural inclination to roost. They will know how to scratch as well. You’ll see. It’s going to be fun!

 

[fluffycrow]

Most things are innate. A mother can help teach chicks things that we can't. That said, the important life lessons are something they can figure out on their own. As SueT said, put some branches in there, they'll learn to roost and climb. Are you using a brooder plate or a heat lamp?

 

[Perris]

some things are instinctive. Some they'll discover by trial and error. I urge you to get them outside and into the garden as soon as possible.
This from Nicol Behavioural biology of chickens 2015:
p.139 “work in mammals has shown that development within a more complex environment results in a more complex, flexible brain, even one that is more resistant to developing stereotypical behaviour… just 1 week’s access to a simple grass outdoor area increased the speed of learning by young layer-strain pullets… hens housed in free range systems from the point of lay developed larger cells in some hippocampal brain regions and a greater fibre density in their serotonin pathways than caged hens… chronic and stressful levels of hunger may impair learning more seriously. Feed-restricted broiler breeders were unable to associate simple black and white cues with differential food rewards.”

 

[SueT]

Some things that the hen teaches them, such as chicken manners, we are sadly inept at. But such is life as a chicken, not so bad really for those lovingly raised in a brooder. They adapt.

 

[Kalobis]

Most things are innate. A mother can help teach chicks things that we can't. That said, the important life lessons are something they can figure out on their own. As SueT said, put some branches in there, they'll learn to roost and climb. Are you using a brooder plate or a heat lamp?

Thanks for the advice everyone, I’m overthinking my role as surrogate chick parent haha.

We got a brooder plate, first time, but it sounded safer and easier.

 

[fluffycrow]

Thanks for the advice everyone, I’m overthinking my role as surrogate chick parent haha.

We got a brooder plate, first time, but it sounded safer and easier.

Nice! IMHO the brooder plate (all other beneficial things about it) gives the chicks a place to hide under. All the time I see scared chicks pressing one another in the corner of their brooder when a human passes by, with no place to hide

 

[Kalobis]

some things are instinctive. Some they'll discover by trial and error. I urge you to get them outside and into the garden as soon as possible.
This from Nicol Behavioural biology of chickens 2015:
p.139 “work in mammals has shown that development within a more complex environment results in a more complex, flexible brain, even one that is more resistant to developing stereotypical behaviour… just 1 week’s access to a simple grass outdoor area increased the speed of learning by young layer-strain pullets… hens housed in free range systems from the point of lay developed larger cells in some hippocampal brain regions and a greater fibre density in their serotonin pathways than caged hens… chronic and stressful levels of hunger may impair learning more seriously. Feed-restricted broiler breeders were unable to associate simple black and white cues with differential food rewards.”

How early can they go outside to explore?

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Will we need to teach them chicken skills? Like how to scratch, roost, etc., as their broody mothers would? Or is that intuitive for them?

Chicks are hatched with most of their instincts. They know how to roost, scratch, peck, drink, eat, fly, etc. You don't have to teach them any of that, and you can't, given the fact you are a human and not a dam. One thing you do have to do is to dip their beak in food and water when you first get them into their new brooder; this is to tell them where they can find those resources.

How early can they go outside to explore?

Usually, people begin to integrate their chicks outside at six weeks.

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Fun fact: chicks are hatched with the ability to know an object still exists even when it is taken away and put where they cannot see it. This is an ability that human babies and toddlers do not have.