Cascade Seramas Blog

11/13/09

The H is Mastered!!!
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Buckeye finally figured out the h on the keyboard and now pecks it consistently,even when he can see all the keys!

11.13.09 12:00-12:20
Goal:Peck H without paper on keyboard, review target training.
Circumstance: Moderately busy
Responses:
1-10: Peck target, follow it in circles and figure eights, etc.
10-20: Consistently choosing J to peck when 6 keys were visible.
21:Peck H!
21-30: Peck H with  6 keys visible
31-37:Peck h with ALL keys visible!!

Summary: He got the j confused with the green h for about 10 pecks. I didn't reward him. He finally pecked h and got rewarded, and continued pecking h. I took away the paper covering the other keys and he continued to peck h.

11/11/09

Chicken sickness and training Buckeye
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I haven't been able to post because I have had an outbreak of Giardia and Coccidiosis.
Sadly, I had three serama chicks die from a Coccidiosis outbreak, which is now under control. Even more sadly, one of those was Duey.
 Buckeye had a seizure, as did 2 other chickens. One of them died. I took Buckeye to a very knowledgeable vet, Dr. Onarati in Des Moines, who diagnosed the condition as Giardia. My chickens are being treated. I am so relieved to have that over with!
 The vet bill cost a minuscule price of $228 and 43 cents! Yikes! I guess it was worth it. We also had to travel 180.3 miles to get there, because for some strange reason, no vets over here get chickens in on a daily basis and none others knew a thing about them. Why on earth would they not study my fine feathered friends in vet school instead of the rare dog or occasional cat? Strange indeed.

 I haven't been able to train Buckeye much. He has mastered the target training, and now I am teaching him to peck "hi" on the keyboard, just because it is cool. Here is his training log:
10.19.09 10:34-10:46
Goal Same as 1 and 2
Cicumstances: Morning, Lots of activity, people walking around and talking
Responses:
1st-4th:Peck right on the dot, a little slow andhesitant between the treat and the peck.
5th: Moved him 2 feet away from the dot, he slowly and hesitanlty walked over and pecked.
6th: Moved him two feet away, he ignored it. Moved mim closer, he ignored it.Moved him an inch away,he ignored it.
7th: After much coaxing, I got him to peck and get rewarded.
Summary: He was full and a lot ofactivity going on, my timing was bad.

10.20.09 10:23-10:34
Goal same as 1, but moving the target around.
Circumstances: He was hungry, not starving, in the dark,at night. Not alot of activity..
Responses:
1st-about the 10th: Perfect pecks
11-13: I put him across the desk. He came came running over the obstacles to the dot.
13-17th: Perfect pecks
17th: Beak rake
17th-27: Perfect pecks, movedit all over the place, on ground etc.
Summary: He did great! Perfect pecks, except for 1 beak rakes. I moved it all over, he still went for it. 

10.24.09
Goal: Same as 1
Circumstances: Quiet, little activity.
Responses:
1-13: Perfect pecks, as I moved it all over the place.
Summary: He has mastered target training!

10.28.09 12:17-12:30
Goal: Review target training, teach him to peck the letter h on a keyboard, followed by the letter i
Circumstances: Noisy
Reponses:
1-10: Perfect pecks, as I moved the target all over the place.

I taped some papers together, so the entire keyboard is cover except for the leter "h". I put a peice of clear sticky tape over it with food on it.

11-13: Eat food
13-17: Beak rake h with no tape.
17-25: Peck h
Summary: He has mastered target training. He figured out that pecking h means treats. Will work on having him distinguish h in the next section.

11.11.09 1:05-1:25
Goal: Same as previous training session, with review of target training.
Circumstances: Semi busy
Responses:
1-10: Peck target, follow it in circles and figure eights, etc.
11-14: Beak rake the paper on keyboard. I placed a peice of paper around most of the keys, except h so he won't get confused yet. Later I will removbe it.
15-27: Peck the h, most often 2 or 3 times before I could get him to stop. Sometimes he didn't press hard enough.
I removed some of the paper, to see if he could recognize the h. He couldn't, so I put a green dot on the h in permanent marker so he could recognize it more easily. He got it after that.
27-35:Good pecks, sometimes missing. He was able to distinguish the h with the green dot on it from the other 4 keys exposed.
Summary: He figured it out for the most part. Heere is some of what he typed:
"qyhuyhjhh hhhghhhhhhjhhhhhhhnhh hhhnhhhhhh                                        " As you can see from the last part, he stepped on the space bar for a little while.

Here are some pictures of him in training. Please keep in mind that he is pet quality and not what I sell. He is a great pet, but would never do well in a show, or being bred.
Pecking the dot:

Getting his treat (wet chicken food, his favorite, besides lettuce):

Supplies, from left to right, Keyboard, with h, green dot, and cover paper, target, and treat cup, with clicker and treat.

10/17/09

Training Buckeye!

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I have started training my pet chicken, Buckeye. I am going to do what this http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:mypASlNZ_vMJ:vein.library.usyd.... says to. For the past week, I have been training him to associate the sound of the clicker with food.I will be recording what he does in my log. Here is what he did today:

10.17.09 2:16 pm-2:26
Goal: Get him to peckthe target with a straight, hard peck.
Cicumstanses: On partially clered desk, computers on, quiet, dark and rainy. Occasional gunshot heard, opening weekend of hunting season. Generator on.  
Responses:
1st: Ignore it (dot).
2nd: Ignore it
3rd: Ate the food on the tape that I taped over the dot, sticky side up,with food on it.
4th: Pecked the dot, now with very little food on it.
5th: Same as 4
6th: Pecked the dot and empty tape
7th: Same as 6
8th: Pecked dot with no tape
9th-15: Same as 8
Summary: Had a little trouble at first with tape, wouldn't stick, food falling off, him eating it. As soon as I put the food on and he pecked it and got rewaded, he pecked it exactly right for the rest of the session. He kept going back and forth between target and treats as fast as he could to get that food!
10.17.09 2:37 pm-2:45 pm
Goal: Same as session 1. Trying to reinforce the dot pecking, see if he will still do it.
Circumstances: Same as session 1.
Responses:
1st-10th: Good pecks
11th:Accidentally reenforced him for raking it with his beak.
12th:Beak rake, no reward.
13-15th: Half-pecks,1 accidentally rewarded, 2 not rewarded.
15-24: Good pecks.
Summary: He was getting full and a little careless. Activity increased towards end of session, he started not doing as good. I accidentally reinforced some behaviors I don't want, I need some clicker practice.

I will try to update his progress regularly.

10/8/09

Chick road trip!
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My family and I had to go to Spokane, Huey and Duey couldn't be left alone that long. So we took them with us! They lived in a live bird shipping box, which was not a smart idea as we later found out when we had to smuggle them into the hotel. They enjoyed their trip because they were always getting treats and attention. They loved sunbathing on the seat of the car, because they aren't often in natural sunlight. They are too terrified when I take them outside.

9/23/09

Chick cam!!!!!!

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I put up a chick webcam!! Go to:
http://seramas.net/drupal/?q=node/59
My chicks are going to be famous!

9/22/09

Fair results

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The fair went well! All the seramas survived. I watched the judge judge them and she said that of the 14 seramas, 2 were to immature and 1 was in bad feather condition. One little rooster placed Best Bantam. Here is his picture (before the fair):

The judge didn't really know how to judge seramas, so I just told her "Vertical tail and wings, extremely short back, and a large, upright breast." Just a serama in a nutshell.           Apparently the rest of the bantams were of a quality not fitting for shows, so he won. He is 7 months old, a cockerel, not yet a rooster. I sold all the seramas I had for sale except one little chick. I will put it on the for sale page soon.

9/9/09

Chicken bathing and chicken waterers
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I bathed all the chickens yesterday. A whole lot of work! I also got these waterers, called pop bottle waterers. Here is where I got them: http://www.cutlersupply.com/cart/index.php?main_page=product_info&produc...
They work really well. Sorry about the blurry pictures, they were taken with a cell phone because the camera was out of batteries. Here are some bathing pictures:

And here is a hen with chicks being blow dryed:

9/2/09

The Fair

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Hello! I am gearing up for the Chelan county fair in Cashmere September 10-13. I will be bringing 11 seramas and selling many of those. I should have at least 1 cockerel and 4 to five hens. I may also bring and sell chicks. Due to fair regulations, I Can not sell any until Sunday the 13th, noon. The fair closes at 5 PM.
 Lots of bathing to do! All my chickens need baths the day before. And toenail trimming. And beak trimming. WOW!

7/26/09

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Hello! My blog has been idle for a long time. I have many more chickens/chicks than I did last time. Buckeye, my pet quality rooster,  is completely harness trained. I will be updating my blog more regularly from now on.

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