One week of data collection down! I’ve discovered that I love my daily commute, it’s a great excuse to listen to an episode of Dungeons and Daddies (I refused to give this podcast a chance for the longest time simply because of the name, but I just reached episode 10 and it’s incredible). Each morning, I take the bus into the city, and from there take a bus out into the Swedish farmland, headed for Vreta Kluster. Autumn has scurried in, although I’m still in denial, adding layers instead of taking my coat out of winter storage. In the crisp morning air, I walk past the school and down the dirt path, headed for the animal facilities.
I can hear the chicken facility almost as soon as I catch sight of it, a cottage-style building nestled next to acres of pasture, usually dotted with sheep who bleat out a hearty good morning. Inside, I trade my shoes for slides as I cross the hygiene barrier, then trade everything else for a pair of enormous blue overalls. Then it’s time to check on my chickens!
The tests have gone surprisingly smoothly so far, considering it was my first time running them. A great deal of the trials involve me sitting quietly in the pen with the birds, and so I have plenty of time to observe them. I’m comparing behavior between different groups, including a domestic chicken breed and a captive population of red junglefowl, and expect to see differences between the domesticated and non-domesticated birds. However, last week I wasn’t seeing much of a difference at all. Any differences I did see were on an individual level rather than a group one – for example, one of the junglefowl who made a habit of hopping into my lap and promptly falling asleep!
In our Friday lab meeting, I described this and expressed a little anxiety about the strength of my results. My supervisor reminded me that, of course, I wasn’t likely to see much of a trend in such a small initial sample size, and it is totally possible for trends to become more apparent in the larger group over time.
“But,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s probably a good thing that you believe there will be no significance. Then you aren’t biased when you run the tests.”
It’s a great take that I’m surprised I’ve never heard before. If I launch into my tests, confident that the white leghorns will be more attentive to me than the red junglefowl, then I may act differently around those birds. I may even be more attentive to them. But with a healthy dose of pessimism, the assumption that there is no difference between groups, my behavior stays relatively standardized and thereby strengthens the study. So I’ll be keeping this in mind in the coming weeks, performing the trials without trying too hard to look for patterns. That all comes later.
Something interesting about working with chickens in a research setting is that while they may be primarily ground-dwelling, they’re still birds. This means that putting a group of them into a box for transportation is so much more difficult than I expected! I thought this would be the easiest way, but carrying them individually to the lab room tucked under my arm has proven to be the most effective (and cutest) method of transport. They can also “pop up” whenever they want…one of my tests involves showing them a colored bowl, but not revealing the bowl’s contents, which was almost ruined on the first day when a chicken decided to hop up on my arm to get a better look!
Another unexpected challenge is simply not reacting to some of these birds’ goofy antics. The white leghorns are definitely the most comical, hopping onto my knee to chirp expectantly into my face, leaning up close to fix an eye on the timer in my lap. Multiple times, a bird has hesitantly scratched their foot across my overalls, as if certain that human = food, but wondering if maybe it requires a little digging to find? When I am running tests with the birds, I want to be calm and predictable, and sometimes it’s a struggle not to burst out laughing.
But that’s all for now – I’m replicating the study with a new group of birds this week, wish me luck!