Chicks Are Smarter Than We Thought … They Can Add too.

Although chicks seem to be just a jumbled up mass of motion when they are hatched and trying to thrive.  It turns out they can do something extraordinary … they can add small numbers.

While this seems tiny and insignificant, it does mean that their brains are a little more finely developed than we give them credit for.

Here’s a link to the scientific journal article.  To be honest, there’s a lot of text in this article, and it rambles on and on in scientific-ese.  But I thought the idea was very interesting to read about anyhow.

The results of experiments 1 and 2 showed that, in the absence of any specific training, chicks spontaneously discriminated between two and three, in both cases preferring the larger stimulus set. …
Hence chicks’ behaviour seemed to indicate an ability to perform additions, i.e. combining two or more quantitative representations (addends) to form a new representation (i.e. the sum).

I’m pretty sure the pecking order concept starts really early, and has a HUGE impact on every single baby chick you raise.  They’re definitely smarter than we might think.

Talk soon!

Kelson

Teaching Chicks to Eat

A good method of getting baby chicks to learn to eat, is to spread a couple handfuls of chick mash on a small piece of cardboard box, so that it can attract the attention of the youngsters as they run across it. By seeing the mash down there, it can make them try and peck some of it.

Also, dipping the beak of an occasional chick into your water fountain helps to teach them to drink.

Just some quick ideas for you!
Kelson

Watch Your Chicks Closely

Baby chicks can get into a lot of trouble in a very short time. It pays to make a lot of visits to your brooder house, at short intervals, to see that everything is going alright for them.

If you don’t have your chicks in a well protected area … you don’t want to take the chance that your heater isn’t working properly, or that your automatic water isn’t giving the chicks plenty of water, or that the birds are getting trampled or don’t have enough fresh air.

You want to check up on them by making frequent visits.

Kelson

No hatching ? … No Boy Roosters

If you’re not saving eggs for hatching, there’s no reason for males to be in your laying flock.

So get them out at once!

Why?

Because males do not increase egg production for you hens.   So, you only want to produce infertile eggs for human consumption, If you’re not going to be hatching your eggs.  PLUS + having boys around (if you’re not going to end up eating them) will raise your feed costs as well.
Kelson