The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Chicken clicken

clicken chicken training image montage
Training chickens is a new way of learning dog training skills.


Operant conditioning from B.F. Skinner involves a clicker and yummy snacks for reinforcement. You can train a chicken to discriminate between shapes, navigate an obstacle course, or just ring a bell.

I wonder if a chicken could be trained to open and close an automatic chicken coop door by pushing the right button?


Does anybody reading this have an especially outrageous task they've always wanted to train a chicken to do?



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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comment 1
Well, our goal for the Debian installation CD has always been that it should be operable by a chicken. This has not been achieved in the real world yet, although some reviewers have made me happy by saying it comes close, in ideal circumstances.
Comment by joey — Sat Dec 4 00:28:05 2010
comment 2
Lest you think I'm kidding: http://duckduckgo.com/?v=n&q=debian+install+chicken
Comment by joey — Sat Dec 4 00:54:23 2010
Chicken programmers
That's hilarious! Our chickens clearly have a long way to go.
Comment by anna — Sat Dec 4 10:24:39 2010
comment 4
I just want them to get off the workshop porch! And maybe not attack the little dog.... he's burly but still smaller than the roos.
Comment by April — Tue Dec 7 23:23:56 2010
Chicken training
Sounds like you're going to have to get some clickers! Or maybe just give them a better place to hang out.
Comment by anna — Wed Dec 8 10:53:17 2010
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