Chick anxiety?

[RonO]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241024130804.htm

These researchers are trying to measure bird depression and anxiety by
vocalization, but it looks like they have the wrong model. What they
did was put two chicks into different environments. One chick was put
in a box by itself, and the other chick was placed in a box with a
mirror. The chick with the mirror was fooled into thinking that it was
not alone, but the chick by itself started giving a different call.
There likely is anxiety in being separated from their hatch mates, but
the call they recorded is likely the gathering call. It is the call
chicks make when they are lost from their brood, and gets the mother hen
to find them. There is likely no more anxiety in the call than when you
flush a covey of Bobwhite quail, and a few minutes later you start
hearing the gathering call that gave the quail their name. The birds
are just trying to get back together.

Chickens imprint at hatching, but it isn't the same as when ducklings or
goslings imprint. Chicks seem to imprint on their environment (brood
mates as well as their mother) ducklings imprint on specific
individuals. Chicks may never imprint on any parent, but they do seem
to imprint on their hatch mates. If they are hatched in isolation they
may not imprint on anything. Ducklings will imprint on the first human
face that they see out of the incubator, but chicks do not do this. The
chicks will still give out the gathering call when separated from their
hatch mates.

These researchers likely need another model to measure anxiety. What
they are currently doing is differentiating the gathering call from
normal inter chick vocalizations.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Post by RonO
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/10/241024130804.htm
These researchers are trying to measure bird depression and anxiety by
vocalization, but it looks like they have the wrong model.  What they
did was put two chicks into different environments.  One chick was put
in a box by itself, and the other chick was placed in a box with a
mirror.  The chick with the mirror was fooled into thinking that it was
not alone, but the chick by itself started giving a different call.
There likely is anxiety in being separated from their hatch mates, but
the call they recorded is likely the gathering call.  It is the call
chicks make when they are lost from their brood, and gets the mother hen
to find them.  There is likely no more anxiety in the call than when you
flush a covey of Bobwhite quail, and a few minutes later you start
hearing the gathering call that gave the quail their name.  The birds
are just trying to get back together.
Chickens imprint at hatching, but it isn't the same as when ducklings or
goslings imprint.  Chicks seem to imprint on their environment (brood
mates as well as their mother) ducklings imprint on specific
individuals.  Chicks may never imprint on any parent, but they do seem
to imprint on their hatch mates.  If they are hatched in isolation they
may not imprint on anything.  Ducklings will imprint on the first human
face that they see out of the incubator, but chicks do not do this.  The
chicks will still give out the gathering call when separated from their
hatch mates.
These researchers likely need another model to measure anxiety.  What
they are currently doing is differentiating the gathering call from
normal inter chick vocalizations.
Ron Okimoto

It has been known for decades (over a century?) that newly hatched
chicks will give their distress call when they start to get too hot or
too cold, but as the temperature further increases or decreases they
stop the distress call and go into a torpor. That is likely what these
researchers should be looking into. All they have to do is increase the
temperature on a group of chicks until they start their distress call,
and compare that to the vocalizations in other suboptimal stress
environments. They do not have to increase the temperature to levels
where the chicks are suffering enough to go into torpor.

Ron Okimoto