What do you consider a "Friendly" chicken

[azygous]

Friendly is when they all crowd in to your arms for a group hug.

 

[MandalaMaMa]

Sounds like yours are habituated to you but not really human-oriented. Not quite human-averse either. Able to go either way, probably, given the right stimuli and depending on their personal predispositions.

I don't class a hen as friendly just because she walks up to me. Isabrowns for example can utterly lack fear of humans (and many other things they ought to fear), apparently due to loss of instincts and overall intelligence, and will walk right up to them and steal food from them, or just peck at them not expecting any sort of reaction like they'd expect from another living individual --- rather like they view us as being animated objects, but nothing more.

If you try to pick one up though she may have an opinion about it, or might not, but their tolerance for people and reactions to them are not always based on any attachment to humans, just lack of fear and instinct. Most of them don't actually 'like' humans, they're just more or less unresponsive to our presence and actions unless it directly impacts them.

My idea of friendly is not the same thing as tame, it's basically a potentiality some birds have, which can become tame with work, even if the chook is the only one putting in the work, and is found in chooks that already possess a human-oriented mentality.

I don't think a chook is friendly because it's tame or runs to humans to get food. That's just a food/reward or habituation response. Such chooks can actually be human-averse and always fight handling and want nothing to do with humans unless there is direct benefit to them that they are expecting. I train my chooks to come when called, and early on into my chook keeping I realized that this didn't have any real impact on human-averse mentalities. I had to cull them out to get rid of them, because all the handling and tameness training and work I tried did not actually change their mindset towards humans, and their mentality bred true more often than not.

When I get a new chicken, whether an adult or chick, I hold it and let it settle in my hands, and talk to it. Absolute refusal to settle is a bad sign. But that's okay, I'll work with that animal regularly to see if it will come out of that mentality. They all get a good few tries before I give up, at taming anyway. Negative behaviors results in culling.

The ones that settle quickest are generally of a more domestic mindset rather than feral/wild type/just anti- anything not chicken. That quick settling indicates the sort of mentality of a chook that will likely be truly friendly to humans and choose to spend time with them without obvious reward.

I talk to them, and make eye contact. The eye contact is often so important for them, many chooks will remain wild without eye contact. For others, it's the skin on skin contact, which sounds weird but it's downright revelationary for some, lol. Once their feet are in your hand, they seem to realize you're a living being they can communicate with, not some kind of animated object, it's a breakthrough for that sort. Some chooks, most, don't need either eye or skin contact to become friendly if they have the inclination, though, it's just something that works with some 'tough nuts'.

Those that have the mental 'groundwork'/inclinations to be friendly, will respond to my voice, listen, answer, make and hold eye contact, and from then on will favorably react to my voice and seek eye contact, knowing that they can communicate with me. These chooks I can work with, 'reason' with, just using voice I can encourage them to show tame behaviors without touching them, for example before they've gained much trust, if I accidentally startle them while out and about in the coop or yard and they bolt, I can tell them it's okay and they instantly listen to that and stop running, because they are more mentally able and willing to communicate with humans.

I consider these sorts human-oriented and these are the ones that will happily associate with you without reward, for example come and sunbathe beside you if they see you sitting in the yard, 'hang out' with you while you're doing things in their area, 'talk' to you, trust you with their offspring, ride around on your shoulder if you let them, etc. Willingly tame, rather than forcibly habituated.

They will produce offspring that often automatically 'talk' to you and seek eye contact, and recognize it when they find it, and actively try to befriend you, even as chicks.

When startled by humans before being handled much or having any real tameness, their reaction is to vocally communicate and seek a response, and once you vocally respond they relax and begin building a friendly bond with you, without you doing anything to push that. Their mentality towards humans is positive and interested without any food reward or forcing of it, and it's very hard to give them a negative view of people regardless of what you do to them.

Others, with human-averse mentalities, don't respond to my voice, don't seek eye contact, don't recognize or hold it when it's made, are very hard or even impossible to communicate with, and without very intensive taming/training (and often despite it) will remain human-averse (unless coming for food).

Sometimes a life-altering/threatening experience changes this, like an illness or injury during treatment for which they completely change their perception of humans. But generally they stay the way they are without such a severe incident and you can get some of them used to handling but they never actively appreciate human contact or company and can never wait to be rid of it, and will always choose to be as free of it as possible.

I cull this sort because I want my birds to be reasonable, easy to work with for their own benefit as well as my own, not stressed by my presence or handling, not viewing me as predator or anything negative.

Ok, so, my idea of true friendliness is a bit nuanced, but, I think that you can find truly friendly natures in wild birds, and unfriendly ones in very 'tame' birds.

You can tame formerly wild friendly birds but never get true friendliness from even fairly tame human-averse birds. Tolerance, nothing more.

Best wishes.

I found your explanation very informative and true. I have experienced some of the things you are talking about not realizing that I have trained my 4 hens this way. Your words have been very helpful as I have a new batch of chicks and will look at working with them a bit differently. Earlier on we did have an aggressive one that just wasn't nice, so we culled her. The flock totally changed after that.
It was funny as I was reading this tonight my 4 older hens were having a hard time going into their new coop -- their second night in it and are still adjusting. So I went out into the new coop and was able to call them in basically one at a time -- my New Hampshire came in first and is the most friendly and trusting. She let me put her up on the roost bar no problem. (They haven't figured that out yet either.) My two Ameraucans have never liked to be picked up but tonight they came right to me and let me pick them up and place them on the roost bar. I saw it as a sign of trust and a rewarding experience.
I just wanted to thank you for your words of experience.

 

[MandalaMaMa]

Friendly is when they all crowd in to your arms for a group hug.

That is just priceless. I love it. What is your secret?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Friendly to me is when a chicken comes up to me and talks to me - not for food but for companionship. She wants to spend time with me and enjoys my company. I only have one hen like this left- an EE (Nutmeg).

My other hens are not really overly friendly- they will come for food and curiosity to see what I'm up to but not to hang out with me.

 

[chooks4life]

I found your explanation very informative and true. I have experienced some of the things you are talking about not realizing that I have trained my 4 hens this way. Your words have been very helpful as I have a new batch of chicks and will look at working with them a bit differently. Earlier on we did have an aggressive one that just wasn't nice, so we culled her. The flock totally changed after that.
It was funny as I was reading this tonight my 4 older hens were having a hard time going into their new coop -- their second night in it and are still adjusting. So I went out into the new coop and was able to call them in basically one at a time -- my New Hampshire came in first and is the most friendly and trusting. She let me put her up on the roost bar no problem. (They haven't figured that out yet either.) My two Ameraucans have never liked to be picked up but tonight they came right to me and let me pick them up and place them on the roost bar. I saw it as a sign of trust and a rewarding experience.
I just wanted to thank you for your words of experience.

You're welcome. It's true for me but won't be true for all, there's a huge spectrum of mentalities out there in chooks. It is amazing how wide the impact of culling one bad chook is, it really does tend to impact the whole flock for the better in my experience. Never something to regret.

Just because something is not natural to the species doesn't mean they can't adapt to it and enjoy it. Some lines groom one another and are pretty partial to being stroked by humans, but the same is true for all livestock and pets pretty much, even species that never groom one another in the wild. They can and do learn to enjoy being 'groomed' by a human.

@azygous that's a nice pic. I've had a few very snuggly chooks but never done group hugs with them, lol. But some people do and the chooks do crowd into their arms for it.

Someone before, a lot of people on this forum really, mention chooks crouching and letting themselves be picked up as a sign of how friendly they are, but that's not friendliness. They're just tolerating 'scratches under the armpits' and other contact experienced while they're soliciting a human for mating. (The scratches under the armpits is kind of funny, if you think about why the hen's adopted that posture and how she might be perceiving the reaction she's getting).

Crouching for humans like that is a sexual response, demonstrating that they both view you as an individual they can breed with and are ready to mate, not indicative of any friendliness whatsoever. Just an aberrant mindset which I personally blame on artificial insemination practices because you get that sort of cross-species sexual response in lines that have been bred for many generations using artificial breeding practices.

While the human's handling the chicken or trying to show it affection, they're just patiently waiting for insemination. Cross purposes, lol.

Best wishes.

 

[azygous]

My "secret" to friendly chickens is simply to handle them a lot as baby chicks. First, I train them to step onto my hand when I slide it across the brooder floor up to and touching their toes. It's a natural reaction for them to step onto your hand when your do this. Having a side-access brooder instead of thrusting my hand downward at the chicks helps tremendously to keep them from fearing me.

As for the group hugs, most of my chickens are friendly breeds, and there's a residual "memory" of being held close as chicks and I believe they feel comfort when crowding in close. Also, it's a natural thing for chickens to want to be close and touching when in a group like that, same as when they dirt bathe. And on top of all that, chickens want what other chickens have, so even the "untouchable" breeds like the Wyandottes will occasionally want some of what the others are so obviously enjoying. It took five years for the particular SLW to join the group hugs, and even still, she's ambivalent about doing it. One other Wyandotte, Irene a GLW the same age, only for the first time in her life decided to join a group hug a few weeks ago, and hasn't since, she being of a particularly disagreeable temperament.

I sure do agree with you Chooks about people mistaking the mating squat for something other than what it is. I do, however, capitalize on it when an unfriendly hen like Irene squats for me, I do pick her up occasionally and give her a "lesson" in closeness or I use it to check her feet and overall condition because I can't catch her when I want. She only tolerates it for a half a minute and fights to be released. You really can't go against the nature of the beast. They are inclined to be friendly or they are not. Like Wyandottes are not.

 

[AthenaT]

All of my "Krewe" were rescued as older pullets or hens....only one has not tamed completely to the point where she jumps into my lap. They all like to be handled, petted and cuddled ...none were aggressive breeds however.

 

[Alexandra33]

My classification of a friendly chicken is one that runs to you whenever it hears you coming, and hangs around your feet, talking to you. We have been blessed with several loving chickens; some of the chicks fly onto our arms and shoulders and have a "conversation" with us. The adult chickens consider us to be the center of their universe; nothing makes them more excited than when someone comes to visit them.

However, we do have a couple who like to see us, but they are not at all fond of being petted or picked up. Thank goodness that the "pet chickens" outnumber the aloof ones in our flock! All I can say is that some chickens just will never really enjoy human companionship as much as others.

 

[r0bz]

culling

when you say culling are you meaning this ?
"reduction of a wild animal population by selective slaughter"

 

[r0bz]

when you say culling are you meaning this ?
"reduction of a wild animal population by selective slaughter"

?