Chicken Training!?!
Introduction
It’s hard to believe, but training a chicken teaches you a lot about dog training. It uses positive reinforcement in its purest form. Chickens are motivated by food. The sound of a clicker is used to communicate instantly with the chicken, to let her know that she did what you wanted. Every click is followed by a treat, a chance to eat chicken feed from a cup. The chicken soon learns that by doing a certain movement, such as pecking in the center of a yellow circle, that she can earn food.
Chicken pecking yellow circle
Shaping Behavior
The timing precision of a clicker allows you to shape the chicken’s behavior. Maybe at first she only looks at the yellow circle, so you click and treat. Then she pecks somewhere in the yellow circle, so you click and treat for that. Just looking at the circle doesn’t earn treats any more. Finally, she starts pecking right in the center of the circle and nowhere else. If you take away the circle, she doesn’t peck at all. She has figured out what works. She has learned the “training game”.
Object Discrimination
Once the chicken has learned the “training game”, you can teach her to click on certain shapes or colors. I presented my chicken with a circle, square and triangle. Now she was only rewarded for pecking on the triangle. You could tell she figured out what worked when by removing the triangle because she only looked at the circle and square without pecking on them.
Chicken rewarded for pecking blue square
Changing the Rules
You can take it one step further and change the rules. You can begin to reward pecking squares and not triangles. After enough repetition, the chicken will peck only squares.
This is an important concept for dog trainers! Think about how your puppy learned that jumping up was rewarding. You didn’t plan it that way. You told her to get off and pushed her away. However, you didn’t realize that for your puppy this interaction was rewarding! If you consistently turn away and withhold your attention when she jumps up, you can teach her that what’s really rewarding is to stand or sit calmly to greet you. Over time, the jumping up behavior will extinguish.
All this happens through reward-based training. No nasty stuff!
Introduction
It’s hard to believe, but training a chicken teaches you a lot about dog training. It uses positive reinforcement in its purest form. Chickens are motivated by food. The sound of a clicker is used to communicate instantly with the chicken, to let her know that she did what you wanted. Every click is followed by a treat, a chance to eat chicken feed from a cup. The chicken soon learns that by doing a certain movement, such as pecking in the center of a yellow circle, that she can earn food.
Chicken pecking yellow circle
Shaping Behavior
The timing precision of a clicker allows you to shape the chicken’s behavior. Maybe at first she only looks at the yellow circle, so you click and treat. Then she pecks somewhere in the yellow circle, so you click and treat for that. Just looking at the circle doesn’t earn treats any more. Finally, she starts pecking right in the center of the circle and nowhere else. If you take away the circle, she doesn’t peck at all. She has figured out what works. She has learned the “training game”.
Object Discrimination
Once the chicken has learned the “training game”, you can teach her to click on certain shapes or colors. I presented my chicken with a circle, square and triangle. Now she was only rewarded for pecking on the triangle. You could tell she figured out what worked when by removing the triangle because she only looked at the circle and square without pecking on them.
Chicken rewarded for pecking blue square
Changing the Rules
You can take it one step further and change the rules. You can begin to reward pecking squares and not triangles. After enough repetition, the chicken will peck only squares.
This is an important concept for dog trainers! Think about how your puppy learned that jumping up was rewarding. You didn’t plan it that way. You told her to get off and pushed her away. However, you didn’t realize that for your puppy this interaction was rewarding! If you consistently turn away and withhold your attention when she jumps up, you can teach her that what’s really rewarding is to stand or sit calmly to greet you. Over time, the jumping up behavior will extinguish.
All this happens through reward-based training. No nasty stuff!
