Hummingbird experiment

 There is a hummingbird feeder on the outside of the kitchen window that has constant visitors. We put up another feeder and it wasn't getting much business, but we didn't know if it was the difference in the food or the location. How could we find out? 

We decided to test if the birds had a preference for the original food (sugar water) compared to the food in the new feeder (commercial hummingbird nectar). We used an A-B-A design. That means, we observed what was happening at the feeder in three conditions.

A- baseline (sugar water), observation: lots of birds sitting and drinking

B- test condition (commercial food), observation: birds initially came for very quick visits and then stopped coming entirely

A-return to baseline (sugar water), observation: after a few days the birds were back to eating as usual. We did the last step to make sure that it was the food that caused the change in visits to the feeder and the hummingbirds hadn't just left the area or been scared off by a new predator.

We put sugar water in the new feeder and the birds started to come there as well. 

Conclusion: The hummingbirds like sugar water better than commercial hummingbird nectar. This is great because it is so easy to make! Just mix one cup sugar and 4 cups of water and pour into your feeder.

 Smithsonian's National Zoo recipe

Peeps at 3 weeks

The chicks are getting so big! This is partly because they really are growing and partly because their real feathers are growing in which makes them look huge. 

Ten quickly growing chicks need a lot of space. This is version 3.0 of the brooder set up. The food and water are now elevated to keep out the wood chips that the chicks fling everywhere while scratching for imaginary bugs. With the cool, wet weather they didn't get to scratch for real bugs quite as much this week. 

We heard panicked peeping one afternoon and found that Cheep had picked up a small piece of a cardboard and couldn't get it out of his mouth. All the other chickens ran around in panic too. I guess that is just what chickens do. 

We thought the purple cardboard under their food was perfect since it was easy for them to grip and kept their bed box clean. Since it was one big piece they couldn't pick it up. We didn't anticipate that they would rip off pieces and eat it! We are trying to satisfy their desire to experiment with new foods by offering carrot peels, occasional worms, and grit, which is basically sand or small rocks that help with digestion. 

The chicks are getting more vocal and faster when you try to catch them, but once you are holding them they are generally content to hang out. If they get tired of playing most will head straight back to the brooder. 

Brooder 2.0 is a good place to hang out with a bunch of chicks. The chicks can't escape and the dogs can't come in either. 

All of the chicks spend a lot of time on their perches now, but they still sleep in a pile on the ground. Stripe is experimenting with a roosting nap. 

Chin, Black Beauty and Cheep are getting very hard to tell apart. 

Cap almost always comes flying over when you open the door to the brooder. He is happy to hang out or take himself on a run around the room. There has been a lot of indoor chicken chasing thanks to this guy. 

Ducky is the chicken of the chickens. When we set up the new brooder we didn't move the birds in, we just left both doors open and let them move in themselves. Cap was first of course. Eight others soon followed and Ducky was left alone in the old brooder cheeping, "Where are is my flock?" Eventually Ducky joined the rest of the crew. 

The chicks are getting harder to photograph. They try to eat their name signs, or fly away. They get more silly everyday. 

Two week chick pics

The chicks are now looking more like teenagers. Their necks are much longer, and their tail and wing feathers are really growing in. At this point they like to climb and hop to high points to look around and then jump off and flutter to the ground. They can easily go four or five feet horizontally on the way down and use their wings to give them a turbo boost when they want to go fast on the ground. They would be impossible to keep track of outside if it weren't for the fact that they always want to stay together. They still squawk if they find themselves alone. 

When we open their cage some of them run for the far end. Others will stare at you and hop right out to explore the room. We are guessing the explores are the roosters. For fun we took a survey of the people who spend a lot of time with the chicks on whether they think the chicks are hens or roosters. None of us have much chicken experience so it will be fun to see if we are right in our guesses. The vote results are above each bird's picture.

Chin is a sweet and curious bird. He will stretch up his neck and come to the front of the cage to see you. We've seen him with his head in the air and his neck filling with air like a frog, which we are guessing is silent crowing practice. (Guess 100% rooster)

Black Beauty is generally shy. It is very cute, but happier exploring than snuggling. (Guess 83% hen)

Cap is very friendly and curious. It is one of the first to hop out of the cage if it is left open. (Guess 86% rooster)

Cheep is the mystery bird. It is happiest with the flock and definitely loud. (Guess 50% hen/50% rooster)

Ducky is the snuggliest of the chicks. She is equally content with the flock or sitting on someone's shoulder. (Guess 100% hen)

Pecky is beautiful bird with maginficent striped wings. It prefers to be held with one of the other chicks. (Guess 67% hen)

Tall is the most likely to come right up and look you in the eye. This looks pretty funny because it has to turns its head sideways and stare at you with just one eye. Tall likes to keep its head up high. (Guess 83% rooster)

Cheeks is another snuggler. It is content to sit with you instead of flying off. (Guess 86% hen)

Stripe is a beauty who like to stay close to the flock. (Guess 71% hen)

Cheep Cheep a Peep is a fiesty bird with amazing feathers. He rushes forward to explore the world. (100% rooster)

Hen Math

Hen or Rooster? Black Beauty here won't tell us!

Most communities allow backyard hens (girl chickens). These feathered pets provide delicious eggs and are fun to watch. However, you can't keep a crowing rooster (boy chicken) in a neighborhood. Some of the neighbors might not like a feathered alarm clock waking them at sunrise everyday.

It is very hard to tell if a young chick is going to turn into a hen or a rooster. We have 10 chicks, so how many will be hens? We decided to do a little probability exercise to look at the question. You can play along too, just find 10 coins and a piece of paper. 

Each coin represents one chick.We'll pretend that heads up means it is a hen and tails up is a rooster. You have a fifty percent chance of getting a heads just like you have a fifty percent chance of getting a hen. That means on average half of chickens are hens and half of coin flips are heads. Below you see the graph that we made to keep track of our data. Maybe you want to make one too! You can send me a picture and I will add it to this post. 

Shake up your pennies and drop them on the table. Find out how many heads ('hens') you have and fill in or X a box above that number on the x-axis (the one that goes across the bottom). 

Here is a how it looked after we flipped our coins 3 times. On our third flip we got ZERO hens! We really don't want that to happen. 

After 20 flips we are starting to see a pattern that numbers in the middle are more likely. 

We switched to blue for flips 21-40 so you can see how our pattern changes. It looks like the left and right sides are evening out as we gather more data.

After 60 flips our data went off our graph, oops! Each X on our graph represents a group of chicks that we could have adopted. Our graph shows that it is most likely that we will get 5 hens. What does your graph look like?  Do you want to guess how many of our 10 are hens? Remember, any number from 0-10 is possible, but the data can help you guess which numbers are most likely. 

Bonus: Can you figure out why it is more likely to get 5 than 0 or 10? How many ways can you get each number of hens? You might want to play with smaller numbers first. For instance if there were 2 chicks you could have boy/boy, boy/girl, girl/boy or girl girl. It is more likely that there is one girl than 0 or 2. Can you find the possible combinations for other numbers? 

The whole chick story: Is there really a 50 percent chance that each of our chicks is a hen? We tried to look for advanced wing and tail feather development, more timid birds and the alternating wing feather pattern found in week-old hens of some breeds. Never having had chicks our own before they looked more like a squiggling peeping mass of cuteness than a bunch of future layers and roosters, so we are still probably right around 50%. 

Week old chicks

At the beginning of the week the chicks fit well in their little plastic brooder. They spent a lot of time sleeping. We noticed right away that they have the instinct to 'scratch and peck'. This is important for finding food outdoors, but a little silly when they are flinging pine shavings on their friends so that they can peck at the plastic bottom of their enclosure. 

 If you turn your hoodie backward a chick can rest in your hood while you do school work. 

 We do not recommend that chicks use the computer. Cheeks was eager to try though. Mostly Cheeks pecked at the Windows key. The little squares must look like a bug. 

Another instinct is to find a high place to roost. The chicks found shoulders to be good resting places. Ducky will sit for long periods of time. 

 The chicks like to stay close together. Sometimes that means 6 chicks in your lap. 

The chicks spent time outside every afternoon this week. They immediately set to eating grass seed and hunting for bugs. 

Cheep-cheep-a-peep and Pecky check out the yard

 Tall perching

 When one chick decides to do something the others all join in. This leads to a crowd at the food dish. 

The chicks had some special social distancing outdoor visitors. B is holding Stripes and Cheep-Cheep-A-Peep

 T and R check out the chicks with mom. 

 

 This posture looks like the chick fell down, but it is just sunning itself. They have also been trying to take dust baths, which looks funny with no dust. 

 Tall and cheeks find a nice high roost on D. 

 T and Black Beauty hang out by the irises

 Ducky places peek-a-boo in L's hair. 

 By the end of the week the little brooder was a little too cozy for 10. They have moved into a big dog crate with perches. Some spend more time perching than others, but they are all getting good at it. This is an important chick skill since they will eventually sleep on a perch at night. 

 Tall looks at us with Stripes and Pecky nearby. Cheeks is on the left.