Animal Behavior Test You Can Try At Home

I have been reading the book “Illumination in the Flatwoods” about the wild turkeys raised by Joe Hutto.  For the most part I find his observations about wild turkeys to be spot on with what I have experienced with the domestic heritage breeds.  Its very interesting to me that there are such similarities.

One of the observations Mr. Hutto makes is that if he points out something for his birds by pointing with his finger they are smart enough to look at the object of his interest rather than his finger.   I never thought about this before but it is a very astute observation.  The birds know you are pointing something out to them – not that you are giving them something.  Interesting.  I decided to experiment with this with my domestic heritage birds and compare their response to my hound dog’s response.

To be fair the hound dog I engaged in the trial is somewhat lacking in basic intelligence.  Her name is Sheba and we somewhat jokingly believe she was denied oxygen at sometime in her birthing process.  Not the sharpest dog we have!  But she is a willing and enthusiastic participant for any endeavor (particularly if it can include squirrel killing).

Now to the experiment!  I was on my normal rounds feeding and my turkey hens were following hoping that I would step on some walnuts for them to eat.  At one point I stopped and pointed decidedly to the bare ground.  Every hen examined the ground – not my pointing finger.  I tried the same experiment on ground that had grass, leaves, and sticks (but no edibles) and each time the hens looked for what I was pointing to – not my hand.

I tried the same experiment with Sheba and she always looked to my hand/finger.  Interesting to see that the turkeys understood I was pointing something out to them but the dog thought my hand was to be the object of interest!  Try this at home!  I would be interested in hearing how many dogs understood the concept of pointing out an object of interest.

This fascinates me because Mr. Hutto associates the ability to abstract what is pointed to with intelligence.  He infers that this is a measure for the intelligence of a being – and turkeys do better than dogs in his trials!  I don’t know if I would go so far as to say turkeys are more intelligent than dogs but I sure do think they hold their own.  They may just not demonstrate intelligence the way we are used to seeing it.  But the cognitive resouces are there.

Margarita Chicken

Margarita chicken is my favorite chicken.   She is a White Faced Black Spanish – that is her in the front in the picture on this post.  (BTW the black hen in the back is Bertha.)  Margarita is more than friendly.  She is a pet.  She loves to be held and petted and will insist you pay attention to her at certain times of the day.  Her favorite treat is dog food.  She is about as engaging as a chicken can be.

Lately I have been putting Margarita in the main chicken coop at night due to a persistent racoon coming around and eating chickens that roost in trees.  In the morning when I let all the birds out Margarita insists on having “breakfast in bed” which means I have to hold the grain up to her roost and let her eat her fill before she will fly down and join the rest of the flock on their daily rounds.

About a week ago I had just finished feeding Margarita her breakfast and had turned around to feed other birds when I heard this horrible squawk.  I spun around and saw Margarita on the ground flapping and flailing in circles like a break dancer.  Another hen, frightened by this behavior, had jumped on top of her and was attacking her.  I quickly scooped her up in my arms and took her to the house.

It was obvious something was wrong.  Margarita’s eyes were vacant and unresponsive.  She could not walk nor stand – only tilt on her side.  She was very uncoordinated.  The only thing I could think of is she suffered a sudden stroke.  She needed to be away from the other chickens and kept quiet so I put her in a large box in my office with a soft towel.

Who knows how much damage a small chicken brain can handle?  Would she recover?  Would she be the same friendly chicken if she did?  Would she be able to take care of herself and roam the farm again?  I could tell she was not in any pain and she was comfortable in the house due to being so tame.  So I dedicated myself to nursing her back to health.

The first couple days were scary.  Margarita could not stand and would not eat or drink.  I took softened dog food and put it in her beak – once she tasted her favorite food she enthusiastically swallowed it.  But she could not peck at it to pick it up herself.  I was very worried but kept at it.  After a couple days of hand feeding and watering she finally started eating and drinking on her own.  But she still wobbled as she walked.  I let her spend days in a small coop outside by herself where she could see the other birds.  This seemed to interest her although she remained “confused” and “wobbly” most of the time.  But I was seeing progress.

This morning when I went to my office to get Margarita I took a moment to turn on my computer and check my email.  To my suprise Margarita started “talking” to me with soft little hen chirps.  I said “good morning” back.  I was at my computer for a couple minutes when I started to hear “knocking” on the cardboard box.  Margarita was pecking on the box to get my attention.  Clearly she wanted to be let out.  And clearly she was getting better.

Margarita was a much improved bird today and when I retrieved her from the coop she came running up to me, pecking my pants leg for attention and making small attempts to fly up into my arms (still a bit wobbly on that one).  As I write this she is sitting on my lap making content hen chirps.  Its nice to have my friend back.

Milking Sheep

I love Manchego cheese!  When I first decided to raise sheep I wanted a breed that could produce enough milk so I could make wheels and wheels of Manchego cheese.  My research into the cheese led me to information on Spanish sheep breeds that cannot be imported into the US.  But it also led me to the Navajo-Churro breed of sheep whose ancestors came from Spain.  The Navajo-Churro met two other very important requirements for me – that the breed be a heritage breed and that it be suitable to the climate of our farm.  Our flock is now well over 100 Navajo-Churros and we enjoy the lamb meat and their wool every year.  But farm and other work requirements have prevented me from taking up milking….until now!

In early December we had a ewe that lost her lamb quite unexpectedly.  It appeared healthy and very large and robust but died within 24 hours of birth.  The ewe, Lady, has a large udder so I decided to try milking her to see how I liked being tied to a twice a day milk schedule.  Lady was not too thrilled with the idea at first but we settled on a “trade grain for milk” barter system and she now allows me to milk her for as long as her small cup of grain holds out.  (After that she does her best impression of a rodeo bucking sheep.)  To my suprise she is giving me almost a quart of fresh milk a day.

We have been making all types of cheese and yogurt and I am quite hooked on the whole process.  Sheeps milk is incredibly rich and creamy.  I find it a bit sweeter than cows milk and with no gamey taste.  It makes abundant cheese and the yogurt is thick and tangy like a Greek yogurt. 

I am in the process of trying to convince other ewes that have babies to share a little bit of milk everyday.  They would only get milked once a day so their baby could stay with them.  The ewes I have been recruiting have all had twins in the past – so can support more than one baby – but only have one lamb this time.  They are, however, very reluctant to give up a drop of milk.  It’s suprising they can hold back as completely as they can.  I have even tried holding their baby next to me so they can see and smell it but they are not fooled.  Sheep may not be the sharpest tools in the shed but they can spot a ruse.

Meant for Each Other

In Hollywood when two beings complete each other it makes for a great movie.  On the farm it is just one of those small dramas that makes you smile at the way the world works.  This week we experienced one such drama.

We raise several hundred turkey poults a year and have seen various hatching problems over the years.  One that is particularly frustrating to me is the scenario where a poult hatches normally but then its legs keep extending – as if pushing – to such a degree that it can neither stand nor walk.  I have a theory that this issue is caused by improper hatching – if a poult does not expend enough energy “pushing” to open the shell of its egg then the muscles still instinctively feel they need to push and thus they extend the legs to the point of hyper-extension.  These poults just roll around the hatcher or scoot themselves along like a surfer on a boogie board.  I have been able to get a few to recover with “therapy” – holding their legs in place and letting them push with all their might until exhausted.  It takes a lot of time and the success rate is very low.  Even those that seem to recover are later prone to joint displacement and lameness. 

This week we had just such a poult hatch in the incubator.  As I contemplated whether or not I should attempt therapy (and risk the heartache of later having to put down a poult that I would become attached to) I remembered the Bourbon hen in my front yard.  This hen had made her nest in our yard close enough to the front door that any attack from a racoon would immediately alert the house dogs and thus us – so I left her to hatch her eggs.  Sadly, while this hen had the dedication needed to hatch poults the quality of her eggs was poor and they were constantly breaking and killing the poults inside.  After the last three eggs were crushed under her weight I contemplated removing her from the nest and locking her up to get her over her broodiness.  But she was so dedicated to hatching (even though she no longer had eggs) that I had let her be.

A thought arose – what if I put this poult under the hen?  The rough ground might provide more traction for his feet.  And pushing “up” into the fluff of a hen’s down would provide the necessary resistence and “therapy” as long as he could remain standing upright.  On the downside he might roll out from under the hen and freeze or be taken by a crow.  Or the hen might crush him if she was not careful.  I decided the little guy was probably not going to make it anyways so this would be his best shot.  He would at least get to spend a night under his “Mom” hen secure in her warm feathers, listening to her voice as she spoke to him, and responding with his soft poult peeps.  And maybe it would give the hen a bit of joy if only for a short time.  So when evening fell I put him under the hen – getting bitten quite painfully by the hen for my efforts.

The next morning I almost dread looking under the hen.  To my surprise the little poult was upright and seemed to be doing very well.  I left food and water within the little families’ reach and left them be.  For two days the hen stayed on her nest caring for that poult.  She did not leave – she had food and water but no “bathroom facilities” – not quite sure how she did it!  She stuck her ground when my two young peacocks attacked her and tried to steal the poult for their supper.  She put up with curious cats, careless dogs, and chickens stealing her food.  All through it the little poult looked stronger and more alive.  Finally I saw him walking around normally as he went to get a drink of water and I knew it was time to move the family.

I put the hen and her poult in a coop where another hen was raising her brood.  Despite the other hen’s six turkey poults and twenty young pheasants (who are the same color and size of turkey poults right now) the Bourbon hen can immediately recognize “her poult”.  And he recognizes her.  They eat together, drink together, and hang out to one side of the coop together.  They sleep in a corner of the coop way away from the other birds.  They are affectionate and so content with eachother.  He needed a Mom and she needed a baby – they have eachother and they are happy.

Bertha

On a family farm some animals become icons just by virtue of their personality.  On our farm one such animal is Bertha.  Bertha is an old Black Jersey Giant hen who was not very notable in her early life.  She lived with the other chickens, laid her eggs, and went about her daily chicken duties.  But when Bertha was five or six years old I found her one day near death.  She was egg bound – she was trying to lay a very large egg and it was stuck.  Not only can this cause great distress but it can actually kill a hen by blocking their digestive tract, cutting off circulation, and leaving them vulnerable to maggots.

I took Bertha in the house to perform an operation to remove the egg.  Not much to it really – just breaking the egg and removing it.  But you have to remember what part of the chicken is being worked on – and it is stinky!  And gross.  But I got the task done with minimal gagging and kept Bertha in the bathroom until she felt better.

When Bertha returned to the outside world she was a changed hen.  She decided she wanted to live near the house and hang around people.  She started just “hanging out” with us when we sat on the porch or had a BBQ.  She will take any food offered of course but even when there is no food you can look behind your chair and there is Bertha.

Bertha also decided to sleep in the breezeway so I provided her with a straw lined nest.  She has gotten rather lazy and does not get up before 9 am.  Anytime before that you will still find Bertha in her nest even if other “early to rise” hens are there trying to push her out so they can lay!  Maybe she needs her coffee.

When Bertha finally gets up she makes the trek from our house to the hay barn where she forages for fallen grain.  She also visits the pig barn to see if any of the fermented grain has been scattered.  She loves the hog grain.  At the end of the day – just before dark – at a time when all other chickens have been secure in their roosts for at least a half hour Bertha saunters back to the house and does a last minute check for food on the porch.  Then she heads to bed.

Bertha is not particularly tame.  She does not jump in my arms like Margarita and she could care less about being petted.  But she has definitely decided to be part of the family.

Adopted chicks – fascinating peek into poultry communication

I heard a lost chick today next to the shop in the tall weeds.  The piercing “peep peep peep” told me this chick was calling to Mom so I gathered my courage (there can be snakes in tall weeds!) and started poking around looking for the lost chick.  To my surprise what I found was a turkey hen sitting on a nest filled with both turkey and chicken eggs.  She was “talking” to this lost chick in “turkey” – all the clucks and purrs were what a turkey hen uses with turkey poults (baby turkeys).  The chick was responding with “chick talk” – all the peeps and chirps that a chicken chick uses to communicate with its Mom.  Both species are very vocal and use sound to bond and keep track of each other as they forage and travel.  I decided to leave the pair alone to see what happened.

Later in the day I heard a ruckus of feathers and angry turkey calls – I ran to the front of the shop to find the turkey hen fighting with two of my juvenile peacocks.  They jumped into the air and battered each other with legs and wings.  Apparently the year old peacocks thought the newborn chick would be a great meal.  The turkey hen was defending her baby with all her might but she was weak and worn out from being on the nest so long.  I was able to gather up the chick and hen and took them to a coop where other turkey hens are raising their young poults. 

Once in the coop Mom and baby calmed down and were able to get a bit of food and water.  I watched them fascinated.  When the hen found a bit of food she held it in her beak and called – using turkey language – to the chick to come take.  Which the chick did!  When the hen found water and was purring with delight the chick came running.  Turkeys purr – chickens do not use that sound but the chick knew it meant something good.  When the chick wandered too far from the hen it called – using chicken language – to find Mom.  She responded.  I was amazed – the chick was speaking “chicken” and the turkey was speaking “turkey” but they understood each other completely.  How is that possible?

Do some species of poultry understand each others’ language?  Can poultry “learn” a language?  Was the chick learning “turkey” as it sat next to the hen calling and listening to her responses?  Does my hen know “chicken” because she lives with chickens?  Many times have I seen a rooster give a warning call for a large hawk and the turkeys respond.  I have also seen roosters give a warning for a small hawk (like a sparrow hawk) and the turkeys completely ignore him.  Maybe birds have an innate ability to understand different sounds – different languages.  While parrots demonstrate their understanding in mimicry maybe other birds understand just as well but don’t have the gift of being able to recreate those sounds. 

I find these questions fascinating – there really is more to birds (and all animals) than our modern philosophy allows. 

For those of you wondering about the hen’s nest – I took the rest of the eggs from the nest and put them in the incubator.  One of the downsides of chickens and turkeys sharing a nest is that the chicks hatch at 21 days while the turkeys take 28 days. If the hen leaves with the chicks – as this one did – the turkey poults will die.  But I found the nest soon enough and the eggs were still warm.  In about a week this hen’s true offspring will hatch and, with luck, I will be able to introduce them to her as well.

Great News About A Diabetic Friend

You probably already know about the escalating diabetes rate in the US and how this disease affects so many people’s lives.  For once there is good news to share – its about a diabetic co-worker of Jim’s and how he has gotten off all his diabetes medicine.

When Jim’s co-worker was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes he swore to his doctor he would get healthy and get off the meds.  The Doctor was skeptical but supported his approach of sensible excercise and good diet.  He gave up the junk food, processed food, and soda.  He ate more veggies, grass based meats, and whole grains.  His Doctor supervised his progress and tested for results and slowly started to wean him from the diabetes medicines.  A couple of weeks ago he stopped taking the last of the meds with his Doctor’s approval and all his lab work is within normal non-diabetic ranges.

He accomplished this simply with diet and excercise.  He still gets to eat good food like meat and eggs – just the right kind of meat and eggs.  He eats lots of veggies and most everything is home cooked.  He excercises regularly.  That’s it!  Is it a cure for diabetes?  No, of course not.  But is it an option that makes a whole lot more sense then heavy medications?  I sure think so.  Sure makes you think about the “real cost” of all that processed food out there in terms of people’s health and medical expenses.

Navajo-Churro Sheep on NPR

NPR did a story on Navajo-Churro sheep and the endangered cultures that depended on them. 

Sacred Sheep Revive Navajo Tradition, For Now

For as long as anyone can remember, Churro sheep have been central to Navajo life and spirituality, yet the animal was nearly exterminated in modern times by outside forces who deemed it an inferior breed. Now, on a Navajo reservation of northern Arizona and New Mexico, the Churro is being shepherded back to health.  Read More

Audio Version

Foster Mother – A Very Serious Turkey Role

The other night I was making the rounds making sure birds were safe in the coops and locked away from predators when I noticed a turkey hen, Elvira, on the ground in an unusual spot around the back of a pen.  This was very unusual.  Elvira is a sharp turkey – she knows not to roost on the ground.  Why she would be in such a vulnerable position and an unusual place when her night coop door was open and available was beyond me….until I went to pick her up.  When I picked her up two turkey poults (babies) were revealed under her warm feathers.  These were not Elvira’s babies – she did not successfully nest this year.  These were the babies of another hen – a sister hen who then recruited Elvira, Fiona, and Solo to help her raise her brood. 

I can only surmise that as darkness fell the turkey poults called to their Mom – who was safe in the coop protecting her other babies.  Foster Mom Elvira must have heard the calls and responded – going to the poults and letting them nest in her warm feathers despite the danger it posed to herself.  This behavior is very, very rare in nature.  Nature does not have a lot of examples of adoption or care for other’s young.  With this act Elvira was putting her own life at risk for the young of another hen.

Why do turkeys do this?  I don’t know!  But its obvious to me that they adore babies and cooperate to raise them.  When I picked up Elvira and the poults to put them away she was content.  Once in the coop they settled down immediately back under her feathers – she purred the whole time letting them know everything was okay.  The next day the whole family – including foster Moms Elvira, Solo, and Fiona, took a stroll around the garden very pleased with themselves and life.

There is so much more to animal intelligence and behavior than we realize.  Their relationships and affections are astounding.  I wish everyone could experience this for themselves.  It opens up a whole new understanding of nature, our world, and even ourselves.

A cry in the night

Today one of my Americana hens showed up at the feeder with 14 beautiful baby chicks.  They were a multitude of colors and very lively.  I always greet this event with a mixture of joy (for the new family) and trepidation because I know there is a hidden nest out there that might have weak chicks who could not follow their Mother.  I dread the thought that those chicks might die from exposure or thirst so I spend hours trying to figure out just where this hen was hiding so I can inspect the nest.  This afternoon I could not find the nest but tonight when I made sure all the birds were safely roosting I heard the dreaded “cheep cheep” of a lost chick.

You would think the sound is easy to follow – its sharp and repetitive.  But the peeps bounce off objects and are hard to pinpoint in brush or a woodpile.  And the chicks are cautious – as you get near to them they suddenly go silent and remain silent for a long time.  I finally narrowed this chick down to a section underneath a very old mobile home that was on the property when I moved here.  Believe me, its not a pleasant thing to be crawling around under an old, falling apart mobile home looking for a chick when you know the rattlesnakes are out, wasps build nests under the trailers, and spiders are abundant.  Fortunately the little chick started cheeping again just as I crawled under the trailer and I was able to get it – still wet from the egg and a gorgeous blonde color.  It would have certainly died tonight either from exposure or a predator.

I took the late bloomer to its Mother who was huddled with her brood in the safety of a chicken coop.  It immediately disappeared in her feathers making contented chick sounds.  I hope its okay in the morning.  A late bloomer like that is at a disadvantage in the brood but I hope its persistence and luck holds out and it gains enough strength by morning to keep up.  It won’t have to travel far for food and water – I put them all within easy chick reach in this coop and I plan on keeping the family locked up a few days till the chicks are really strong.  I just hope the little blonde chick makes it!

UPDATE:  The blonde chick made it and is thriving!  The little family now ventures out during the day to enjoy their busy chicken activities and at night comes back to the coop for safety.  This hen is a great Mom.