20. Natural vs. artifical incubation, imprinting?

Good Morning, I hope you had a fabulous weekend.  Have a wonderful day! ww
I did. Everything at the barn was good. It got really wet though after our water fight with a couple friends last night. Haha!
 

Okay, so what came first, the chicken or the egg? Haha this question.... Well the answer to this would be more of an opinion. I think it was the chicken, because God created Adam and Eve as adults so wouldn't the animals be adult too? What do you think?  I agree with you 100%

 

So which is better, natural or artificial incubation?  Neither is really better than the other. With the incubator, you have to keep the temperature and humidity controlled and rotate the eggs. Natural, you don't have to do much, but if the hen gets lazy they'll die. So it's really just what you prefer. I however have no preference.

 
Do baby chicks imprint the way ducks can?
I don't really know anything about ducks. So what do you mean?

Imprinting:
Definition:
1. n. The tendency of young animals to follow the first moving thing they see. In the wild, this is usually the mother, but in captivity, where the mother may not be the first thing they see, they might follow a human being or any moving object. Source: Durrell, G. and L. Durrell. 'A Practical Guide for the Amateur Naturalist'. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1989. 2. n. A kind of associative learning in which an animal rapidly learns during a particular critical period to recognize an object, individual, or location in the absense of overt reward; distinguished from most other associative learning in that it is retained indefinitely, being difficult or impossible to reverse. Source: Keeton, W.T. and J.L. Gould. 'Biological Science (4th Edition)'. W.W. Norton & Co Ltd. New York. 1986.

Imprinting is best known in which a young animal gets lots of its behavioral characteristic from the parent.  The babies are born and imprint on their parents and then follow them around.  Have you ever seen the movie (Fly Away Home) with the Canadian geese?  That whole movie is about the Imprinting of goslings with humans.  So I was wondering if chickens imprint on their parents or the first things they see when hatched like some other birds? I thought that might be what it meant, but wasn't sure. No they don't. That would be adorable. They do follow their mom around, but they can tell that a human is not their mom. Chicks are mostly scared of people.

kk