Course tomorrow

Tomorrow I'm off to Oxfordshire for the first session of a three part course on clicker training with Chirag Patel.  I can't wait!

http://www.oabc.org.uk/seminars/practical-training-skills-workshops-for-dog-trainers-and-behaviourists/

Sounds really interesting - I like that guy!

He's good - I met him at the dog bite conference last year and was very impressed by him. Using a technique he explained during his talk, I managed to cut Aslan's nails for the first time ever without being bitten. I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this so close to me.

let us know how it goes!

I'm shattered!!!

We had a few short 'lecture' type sessions interjected with practicals. The first one I was absolutely hopeless at. We had five numbers on small pieces of card spread out in a fairly random order in four corners and a centre. When Chirag called out a number, we had to use a small coop cup with a clicker attached to reward an imaginary animal sitting on the relevant number. I soon discovered my co-ordination was hopeless. It sounds really simple, but he added in numbers that weren't represented, and speeded up. Adding corn into the cup was even funnier, as we ended up with corn flying everywhere. Working in pairs, we took it in turn to do the exercise, with the other as a coach. Then we introduced the timer, and had to do the exercise for 10 seconds, then swap with the partner.

We were then introduced to our chickens. We each had two chickens, and the first exercise was to practise taking them out of the pen, and standing them on the table, whilst the partner fed them from the coop cup. The progression was to allow the chicken to stand free on the table, whilst being fed fro the cup, then testing to see if the hen would follow the cup.

We then introduced clicking and treating, with a black circle of around 15cm diameter, with a white centre circle of about 1cm diameter. The idea was to use shaping to get the chicken to peck the white circle. Amazingly, it didn't take them that long to get the hang of it. We used a lure for one of our chickens, but not for the other, and it demonstrated how a lure can be used effectively, but how also it can accidentally be a reward for a behaviour the chicken was doing at the time you're attempting the lure.

There is so much to think about, not least co-ordination and effective response. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, we're teaching the birds shapes and colours!

It does sound very interesting. Don't forget an update for day 2.

Sounds very interesting! Enjoy!

Thanks both!

Sounds really good - I'd love to be able to do that!

That sounds really interesting! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Caryll wrote:Sounds really good - I'd love to be able to do that!

Eleanor wrote:That sounds really interesting! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks both, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and have brain ache!

Today Cagney now knows blue, and Lacey knows triangle! (Yes, I named my chickens, chicken 1 and chicken 2 just didn't cut it for me).

For Cagney we evaluated her with three identically sized square targets, which were blue, green or red. With our timer set at 15 seconds, we gave her a choice of colour, if she pecked one it was removed, if she pecked another this was also removed, and her target became the colour that was left. We then encouraged her to peck at the blue shape. Each time she got it right, she was clicked and treated. Once she was consistently pecking it, we then moved it around the table to ensure it was the target she was pecking, not just the position relative to where she stood. Again, once this was consistent we added a second colour; each colour was moved after a successful attempt, and then the third was introduced. If at any time she got it wrong at this stage, we removed the target colour and replaced it once she stopped doing the inappropriate colour, so that she could be rewarded for the correct colour. Again, once she was consistently achieving this, we started to remove the correct target for a few seconds, so that she would look for it but not peck an incorrect colour. We could do this with her by removing the target for one second randomly every three - four attempts. Tomorrow we aim to build that to 30 seconds.

With Lacey we had four shapes to evaluate her against - square, circle, triangle and star. We then continued in the same manner with the triangle as a target, as we did with Cagney and the blue square. Lacey could easily recognise the triangle from the square and circle, but got confused with the star, so we need to work on that tomorrow.

Each session with each bird was timed at 30 seconds for the first 3/4 of the day, increasing to 45 secs for the last session. Each trainer and coach had a pair of birds each (my partner's birds became known as Scraggy and Beaky), so each bird was done in turn, giving them a rest between sessions. Towards the end of the third session, Scraggy was becoming a little distracted, we soon found out why when she laid an egg - her concentration became far better after that, and she was a star pupil.

That actually sounds amazing! I'm quite jealous!

If you ever get the chance - do so! This is by far the best of the (many) courses I have been on!

Time and travel is an issue, sadly. Maybe some day!

Fascinating!

My problem is that I don't drive, so just about everywhere is too far!

That's very interesting!

I laughed so hard at the egg laying bit.

We took our chickens to the next level today. Cagney managed to stick religiously to her blue square, even when it was removed from the table for up to 20 seconds she still didn't peck the wrong colour. To simulate un-teaching a learned behaviour, we then had to redirect her to a different colour with no mistakes on her previously learned colour.

Lacey was targeting a triangle amongst her four different shapes, triangle, square, circle and star. The shapes seemed to be more difficult for the hens to learn than the colours, Lacey was one of only two in the hall that managed this task. My partner's shapes bird, Beaky, was very stubborn, but we did manage to get her hitting her square with 90% accuracy.

Here's Cagney looking for her 'blue':



and with it removed:

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6S_IFjYlDE&feature=youtu.be"][URL="https://youtu.be/G6S_IFjYlDE"]https://youtu.be/G6S_IFjYlDE[/URL][/URL]

Here's Lacey learning to target the triangle:



And getting it most of the time from a group of four - she gets a click and a treat with every correct choice.

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2b_5Ef-5GY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2b_5Ef-5GY[/URL]

Great pictures! Thanks! That's really interesting!

It makes sense that the colours would register more strongly with chickens, with their colour vision being so developed. Did any of them seem to show a preference to the red colours at first? I only ask out of pure interest, as I'm doing an assignment involving this, based on previous studies which showed chickens are quite attracted to red.

Funny you should ask that, I had expected them to. To choose which colour to teach them to target, we had to first give them 15 seconds to choose of their own accord - mine wasn't fussed, so I chose the blue for her. My partner's hen wasn't fussed either, so he chose green. When being taught to target the colour, both our hens made mistakes between blue/green, but never went for red. I'd be very interested to read your study, if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Unfortunately, I can't share the study I'm currently doing, as it's for an assignment and the submission plagiarism-checker would pick up on it. I'll try to post the previous studies though!

Yes, don't put your marks in jeopardy; it is technically possible to plagiarise yourself!!!

Seems very interesting indeed!
How would you rate the course overall?

tracyp wrote:
How would you rate the course overall?

11/10 I don't say that lightly, I'm not one to gush over the top at things, and giving feedback, I usually err on the side of caution. I could not fault the approach, the trainer, the venue, the care of the hens, the content of the course or the hands on practicals. It was quite intense, but enjoyably so.

Lorraine wrote:Yes, don't put your marks in jeopardy; it is technically possible to plagiarise yourself!!!

It's so annoying! The plagiarism checker well pick up on literally anything - including assignments submitted five minutes beforehand! I'll have a look for those journals when I get home from uni today, though.

Lorraine wrote:

tracyp wrote:
How would you rate the course overall?

11/10 I don't say that lightly, I'm not one to gush over the top at things, and giving feedback, I usually err on the side of caution.  I could not fault the approach, the trainer, the venue, the care of the hens, the content of the course or the hands on practicals.  It was quite intense, but enjoyably so.

Sounds really good then! I'm glad you've enjoyed it!