training chickens for voluntary flight

[Oven Ready]

This is an interesting thread. Our house chicken 'Lumpy', so named because he appeared to have a bit of skull missing and his brain was pushing thru when he was born, responds to various different 'commands' - simply calling his name attracts his attention and he wanders over, making a lip smacking sound makes him rush over and when he hears cutlery clinking on plates he appears in the house from wherever he was.

Our main rooster 'Oven', knows his name and will stop doing whatever he is doing (chasing girls) when you shout it. The other rooster 'Rollerball' does the same, but if they are both chasing then only the one you shout will stop and look. The other one says 'Sucker !' under his breath

As for red jungle fowl, we have wild ones here and they fly as well as any other bird... OK they're not exactly hummingbirds, swallows or other acrobatic birds but they fly just as well as any bird of their size - very fast & direct somewhat like a common pheasant. They regularly fly the entire length of our plot (200 metres) at a height of between two and seven metres.
Our own Japanese bantams can easily fly over our pond, about 30 metres, the females look more comfortable than the males but I think it only looks that way because the males have such long tails, I don't think the distance is the problem for them, it's more a question of motivation - after all, how often do you run somewhere? You are perfectly well designed for running everywhere but the motivation to do so isn't there, if walking is good enough then we all walk.

I'll be interested to see how this goes.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
Spot-on Oven Ready.

 

[English Hen]

My silver grey dorking Loves to fly she is the lightest of my hens I susspect she is showing off a little. The Wyandotte , BIG GIRL will follow on foot & still seem to get the best of the food! Have 1 third of an acre in town worry they might get into the yard next door. Does anyone consider wing clipping.? Seems like declawing a cat rather they had their fun & risk the consiquenses. Any thoughts?

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Oven Ready,

Motivation is going to be a problem. I am confident short flights (25 m) can be promoted with food items but longer distances may be a challenge. Brief periods of food deprivation, like used by falconers, might be needed to strengthen enticement value of morsels. Mental state with genetic influences will also be important. The American Games being used now are of strain that has consistently demonstrated strong flying abilites when evading predators on walks (physical locations usually centered on a barn or fence row) where birds must get all their own food, reproduce and otherwise stay alive. Flight ability of this strain appears comparable to ringneck pheasants, although less speed but more manueverable. Other game strains we have had do not fly anywhere near as well. Some of this difference is mental, some is genetic and some is conditioning

I am also rearing some red jungle fowl chicks (multiple generation hatchery line) but I doubt they will be as capable on wing as your wild red jungle fowl. Hatchery selection seems to really put a damper on many performance chracteristics of wild critters, be they birds or fish.

I am getting anxious as well. At some point I will have to move this operation out to a football feild and that is going to be scary. Will conditioning still work or will birds run / fly for cover?

 

[centrarchid]

The chick being trained (named Eduardo) can now produce three 15 feet horizontal flights in a 10 minute interval. Longer flights appear well within his ability since in mid-flight he simply stops flapping to loose altitude and starts flapping again to go back up. His landings are slow and delicate. I think performance pretty good for a hand raised chick that still has chick fuzz covering head and much of body and does not have to be scared to perform. He still sleeps alot afterwards.

 

[Oven Ready]

The flapping then gliding flight pattern is exactly what the wild ones do, flap hard and fast gain speed and some altitude then glide using the tail for directional changes, then flap hard again to regain lost altitude and speed. Sounds like your boy is catching on !

Perhaps you should have named him Orville or Wilbur

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

That's awesome centrarchid! Have you thought about taking him out to the place where you will ultimately film them? I wonder what it would do out of it's comfort zone. Maybe you should take it on a few outings to get it used to it? Good job on the flights!

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Doing this in baby steps. Will try filming indoor flights tonight. Should get him used to tripod and camera.

Comfort zone is a problem; outside he flies only half as far and seems to want cover.

Next step will be taking him to a soccer feild or football stadium on campus. I suspect training will almost have to be restarted until he gets used to the new venue.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
Doing this in baby steps. Will try filming indoor flights tonight. Should get him used to tripod and camera.

Comfort zone is a problem; outside he flies only half as far and seems to want cover.

Next step will be taking him to a soccer feild or football stadium on campus. I suspect training will almost have to be restarted until he gets used to the new venue.

Interesting. I think a lot of us are looking forward to the video.

Good luck tonight!

 

[Oven Ready]

You might find that on a football field he'll prefer to run because it's easy to run on nicely mown surface.

The ones here tend to run up our driveway (concrete), if they feel the truck is 'herding' them.
They take flight when they decide it's better to get off the road and fly over the meadows consisting of about 6-9inch grass with occaisonal small trees - not a suitable terrain for running through.

At a guess (and it is really a rough guess) flying would be about three times faster than running at what looks like full speed running. If I catch them on the road tomorrow I'll check the speedometer. Not sure if I'll be able to check the flight speed although I could measure the time it takes them to get to the boundary and then measure it off. I'll see if I can get you some figures to compare.

If they are startled while in the meadows or the banana plantation they take flight immediately, rising vertically then switching to horizontal flight. You might need a 'startler' to help your boy get into the air rather than opt for the ground route.

This is so interesting, I'm tempted to try it with my house chicken although I think he is so well fed that sustained flight might be problem for him