![]() The project is being carried out by the Animal Welfare Research Group at NMBU, and it is financed through the Agricultural Agreement, the Agricultural Research Tax Fund (FFL) and Animalia. In other words, they have become more efficient at the task", proclaims Tahamtani. None of the chickens spend a lot of time looking in the cups that are empty. They know that they must put their heads down into a cup to find the food, and that the food can only be found a few places in the room. They have learned that when I come to get them, food is on the way. "The chickens I have now worked with for several weeks have developed good brain capacity. The goal of the study is to find out if they have the ability to learn over time, if they have the ability to learn several tasks, and whether being raised in a complex environment has lasting effects on the brain that influence the ability to learn. The investigation of the long-term memory concerns information the chickens have acquired over time. " It will be exciting to go through the material collected, and see if it shows that the early growth environment influences learning", Tahamtani states. Several of the chickens know exactly where to find the mealworms, and they don't even bother to check the other cups anymore. Some of the chickens are so fast that I must hurry out to be sure that I manage to survey them", Fernanda Tahamtani smiles. "Now I have been doing this for five weeks, and many of the chickens reveal a very good memory. Then the chickens could sit in the corner they were placed in for a long time, and move randomly around the room. ![]() "When Tahamtani enters the room, the chickens know that food is on the way." ![]() "A complex environment with challenges that these chickens have had, clearly contributes to brain activity and to a close relationship between humans and animals, " says Janczak. Janczak tells of an early change in the behaviour of the chickens after the experiment began. Most aspects of egg farm operations are the same across all production systems ie shed design, bird genetics. Approximately 55 of hens are kept in cage production systems with the remaining in cage-free systems. Farms with flocks of 20,000 - 60,000 are most common. This is because they have grown up in a much more complex environment, in which they must make an effort to find food and water", says the researcher.Īssociate Professor Andrew M. These farms vary in size from less than 1,000 hens to over 500,000 hens. We expect that the chickens from aviaries will find out where the food is more quickly than the chickens from cages. "In order to be the most efficient, they must therefore remember which cups they had tried in order to avoid trying them again. Tahamtani is studying how efficient the chickens are at procuring food, and whether they remember where they have been and what happened at that actual place. The short-term memory, or the working memory, of the chickens provides information on what takes place in a short period of time. The exercise is done with all of the chickens twice a day, six days a week. I observe the chicken from outside the room, to see if she has learned which cups contain the goodies", says Tahamtani. "I bring in one chicken at a time, place it in a corner, and leave the room.
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