training chickens for voluntary flight

[centrarchid]

Something startled Sallie and Eduardo this morning just before dawn, most likely pup intended as livestock guarding dog. Sallie flew 1/4 around house and slammed into bedroom window. Eduardo flew 120 horizontally with a gain of about 20 feet from front porch to power line at northeast property boundary. I do not like chickens on power lines, they are prone to touch multiple wires. When he flew down, after about 20 minutes, it was under power the whole way. Very impressive.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
After watching this morning, above in respect to Eduardo making more sense. Both birds are presently flock members with a full adult dominique rooster. Dom comes down from roost first. Many birds coming down after get a peck or at least a good chasing. Sallie and Eduardo effort to fly past him to feeding station which is about 120 feet from roost. Problem for both Eduardo and Sallie is that dom will then chase them on ground after they land. I observed Eduardo fly to feeding station where he was immediately chased by dom. Eduardo then flew verticaly about 10 feet to support cable for power line pole. He could easily have flown another ten feet higher to position he occupied on previous observation. Yesterday, Sallie must not have been lined out correctly for going up on power line so flying back to house must have been best escape route for her. The dom rooster is spending more effort targeting higher ranking flock members for pecking and may be more agressive with males. Low ranking birds seem be largely ignored. Dom rooster's limited flight capacity maybe reason Eduardo and Sallie fly up or have option to do so as an escape route. I do not recall seeing pure game roosters doing all this running around pecking subordinates when coming off roost but I did not watch either.

 

[centrarchid]

Getting closer to desired recording of voluntary flight. Sallie and Eduardo are shown flying from roost to feeding station where I sat with camcorder. Best shown of Sallie but Eduardo shown in parts of video. I should be able to determine flight speed but value is likely to be much lower than will be observed in desired longer flights. Distances covered were about 120 feet and Sallie gained about 6 feet. Eduardo lost about 1 foot.

 

[centrarchid]

For those following thread, the following is the best flights I think will recorded this winter. This is where it should have been all along. I learned a lot from this which will make future efforts much better.

I could get them to fly a lot farther if they were not so tame and I had planned better. I will breed more for next fall and attempt to have similar recordings of flights of approximately 500 feet. Next round will be with females only. Eduardo is starting to feel his game side and will have to be confined soon which will decrease his stamina for such flying efforts.

It has been fun!

 

[centrarchid]

This morning at dawn I got two flights just over 200 feet horizontal with increas e in elevation of about 4 feet. Almost double previous recorded flights.

Method involved placing 30 minutes prior to sunrise a sawhorse at a pre-measured distance (~200 feet) from feeding station. Eduardo and Sallie were then placed on sawhorse (elevation ~ 3 feet above ground) and camcorder setup close to sawhorse so birds and feeding station were visible. Saw horse was placed about at about a 15 degree angle from usual flight path so house did not obstruct bird's view of feeding station. I then walked up to feeding station and waited about 5 minutes before they launched.

I need snow and good amounts for such videos to be of any quality. Brown birds flying towards a brown back ground are very difficult to see.

Will attempt to upload shorter video.

 

[centrarchid]

Finally figured out how to edit videos. Also recorded bigfoot walking through yard.

 

[centrarchid]

This morning I observed a red jungle fowl pullet fly about 130 feet from pens to feeding station. The jungle fowl, like the games seem capable of two speeds in trimmed out flight. A difference in leg position that may be related to speed was noted. When flying fast, feet are tucked forward under body. When flying slow legs extended backwards under tail. My guess is that helps shift center of gravity to adjust trim. Legs forward pushes center of gravity forward, legs back is reverse. Most of Eduardo's flights with legs back and much of his flight distance not trimmed out. The legs back may be more suited for manuevers at low speed.

 

[centrarchid]

Summary of Training for Voluntary Flight

Flight profile varies with context (Figure 1) – Chicken flights I induced during my youth were very different than those induced and recorded over last few months. Previous flights were with semi-feral birds pressed by me and trained dog to perform escape flights. Same birds had to contend regularly with predation attempts by red foxes, coyotes and occasional stray dogs. They also had to provide all their own forage and had home ranges that were much larger, sometimes 0.5 mile from one corner to another. Birds I have now are direct descendents of birds I had 30 years ago but experimental subjects were hand raised, not hen raised. They also come when called and will fly up to my hands for food. Their home range is at the maximum 0.125 miles point-to-point. Existing birds seldom challenged by canids (wild or domestic). Present birds also get at least half of their diet as I provide it.

Figure 1.─Profile of escape and voluntary flights.


Immediate context as it affects mental state very likely influences differences in flights. Escape flights of 30 years ago were promoted by slowly walking / driving birds along a fence row or tree line they used as cover in a direction that took them away from the roost (usually a barn or out building but sometimes a grove of white pine trees). At some point would reach the end of their cover and be forced to traverse open ground. The open ground usually was the turnaround point where birds would fly usually whole distance back to roost. Birds would launch with a great deal of ruckus, fly to an altitude of 30 feet or greater before transitioning to trimmed out horizontal flight interspersed with stretches of flapping and gliding. The gliding stretches themselves were comparable to the entire voluntary flights I have recorded recently. Flapping (Figure 2) varied greatly between the escape flights and the recorded voluntary flights. Flapping of escape flights, especially early in flight was high amplitude with wing-strokes probably represented the full range of motion possible during flight and flapping frequency was probably maximal as well.

Figure 2.─Diagrams representing low (sustained) and high amplitude flapping of wings. Blue quadrilaterals represent flapping range.



The flapping-phase immediately following launch was also of longer duration than with most voluntary flights. The voluntary flights seldom exceeded 20 feet in height and longest distance observed as about horizontal 300 feet. Voluntary flights were not always trimmed out (Figure 3).

Figure 3.─Diagrams representing low and high angles of attack during flight. Low angle of attack associated with trimmed out flight and higher speed. High angle attack associated with launch, landing, display and when flight distance short with low speed typical with lots of maneuvering.


Eduardo (male) flew with a higher angle of attack. Initially I thought high angle of attack was due to his greater weight relative to female. I do recall flight trim during escape flights as being similarly trimmed out for males and females. The high angle of attack coupled with high amplitude flapping “like a butterfly” has a display function and the cottontail (Figure 4) is something shown off to other chickens seeing his flight. Eduardo I think is trying to show everyone else how tough he is by flying in an exaggerated manner. He often followed up his voluntary flights with bouts of crowing.

Figure 4.─Diagram representing appearance of cotton on male (Eduardo).

Flapping during voluntary flights except immediately following launch was low amplitude but frequency of wing beats was high. Flight speed for voluntary flights averaged 17 and 21 mph for Eduardo and Sallie, respectively. Maximum speed likely a few mph faster when taking into consideration acceleration phase of launch and landing. Escape flights likely averaged faster, possibly much faster, owing longer trimmed out phases of flight relative to launch and landing and the fact birds seemed to invest a lot more energy into flapping during trimmed out middle portion of flight. Following escape flights, birds seemed exhausted (breathing with mouth open and wings drooping in part to dump heat) for many minutes to hours while with voluntary flights, a repeat performance could be made within seconds to a couple minutes at most.

 

[phasianidae]

This is very interesting, Eduardo is a Red Jungle Fowl right? Does he have a pea comb?

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
American Game. Mostly Old English Game with some Oriental influence (Aseel?) as made evident by pea comb. Based on records, Oriental genetics introduced sometime in early 1980's through a rooster that was himself not pure Oriental. Selection against most Oriental characteristics excepting for pea comb trait very strong owing to rearing system. Based on recollection of party responsible for introduction, Aseel . Aseels not strong fliers, wing loading too high and too heavy in ass.