Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Surely 'family' would fit better

I agree, that's a much better description.

Nor what your problem is with flock. Why don't you want to use it? What is everyone else in poultry studies using it getting wrong or missing?

There are a few reasons. It's not an adequate term for the behaviour I and the studies, even the poor ones, have observed.
Flock to me and I've asked others, suggests a few hundred sheep grassing on a hill side, the seagulls returning to their roosts from foraging on the river Avon, a sky full of migrating geese. It's not well enough defined and most people when thinking of flocks (unless they're chicken keepers of course) would describe similar to what gets brought to mind when I think of the word.

Tribe carries lots of what's been described as baggage. Good broad consensus on this word as well, but with lots more clues about the kind of structure and social arrangement one might expect.

Perhaps you would like to link some of them. In the one I excerpted above more than 80% of the observations were of single birds. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-28985256
That paper and others suggest a lot of fluidity in the composition of groups as hens go broody and separate off to incubate and then raise their chicks. The groups are indeed small - tiny even - most of the time. And sometimes gather into groups of up to 25 in that paper and about 30 in other papers I've read on it.

For example, most people when defining or describing what the word tribe means will come up with a similar response to MJ response above.
One would expect a boss/king/leader in a tribe.
One would expect hierarchy in a tribe. One might expect a particular mating arrangement. What about alliances and friendships.
One might expect families in a tribe and knowing it's tribe how and where to look for them.
So the word tribe leads to clues as to what the social structure may be and where to look for evidence of it.
The word tribe is informative, whereas the word flock is essentially another word for lots.

When one wishes to learn more about the chicken natural social structure viewing the groups as tribes becomes very helpful. Take the egg song. It attracts a particular rooster, any old male won't do from what I've seen and the the comments about the article and posts on BYC. Why does it attract that rooster. because he's the hens rooster and it's his genes the hen wants to go forward. It gets more informative the deeper one digs. Why does her rooster respond to her call. He wants to prevent any other roosters genes going forward. Now you've got what other roosters; relatives maybe, but it seems it's from roosters from other groups more than tribe relatives. Now we have other groups.
Now you've got at least two tribes of the same species.
So, tribe I find adds some dimensions that flock doesn't.

Perhaps you would like to link some of them. In the one I excerpted above more than 80% of the observations were of single birds. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-28985256
That paper and others suggest a lot of fluidity in the composition of groups as hens go broody and separate off to incubate and then raise their chicks. The groups are indeed small - tiny even - most of the time. And sometimes gather into groups of up to 25 in that paper and about 30 in other papers I've read on it.

I don't understand what the relevance of sighting 80% single birds is.
Were the sightings of the single birds the same bird? Could they identify one bird from another? Seeing one bird on it's own doesn't mean it doesn't belong to a tribe. Lots more...
However, the paper does at least identify discrete groups of the same species which is what I believe we were on about. So I dare say to the others papers you presented bits of. I really don't see the need to waste my time on posting any further papers when we both know they will all describe (bar a couple of papers I recall where the jungle fowl were confined in a zoo) a number of small groups living in the studied area, when I know you have read exactly the same. You've even post a chart showing some kind of distribution.

I did ask you a question which you haven't answered.
I've tried to answer your questions in as direct a manner as I can. An answer to my one question would be polite.

Why is this?

 

[Shadrach]

Surely 'family' would fit better

I agree, that's a much better description.

Nor what your problem is with flock. Why don't you want to use it? What is everyone else in poultry studies using it getting wrong or missing?

There are a few reasons. It's not an adequate term for the behaviour I and the studies, even the poor ones, have observed.
Flock to me and I've asked others, suggests a few hundred sheep grassing on a hill side, the seagulls returning to their roosts from foraging on the river Avon, a sky full of migrating geese. It's not well enough defined and most people when thinking of flocks (unless they're chicken keepers of course) would describe similar to what gets brought to mind when I think of the word.

Tribe carries lots of what's been described as baggage. Good broad consensus on this word as well, but with lots more clues about the kind of structure and social arrangement one might expect.

Perhaps you would like to link some of them. In the one I excerpted above more than 80% of the observations were of single birds. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-28985256
That paper and others suggest a lot of fluidity in the composition of groups as hens go broody and separate off to incubate and then raise their chicks. The groups are indeed small - tiny even - most of the time. And sometimes gather into groups of up to 25 in that paper and about 30 in other papers I've read on it.

For example, most people when defining or describing what the word tribe means will come up with a similar response to MJ response above.
One would expect a boss/king/leader in a tribe.
One would expect hierarchy in a tribe. One might expect a particular mating arrangement. What about alliances and friendships.
One might expect families in a tribe and knowing it's tribe how and where to look for them.
So the word tribe leads to clues as to what the social structure may be and where to look for evidence of it.
The word tribe is informative, whereas the word flock is essentially another word for lots.

When one wishes to learn more about the chicken natural social structure viewing the groups as tribes becomes very helpful. Take the egg song. It attracts a particular rooster, any old male won't do from what I've seen and the the comments about the article and posts on BYC. Why does it attract that rooster. because he's the hens rooster and it's his genes the hen wants to go forward. It gets more informative the deeper one digs. Why does her rooster respond to her call. He wants to prevent any other roosters genes going forward. Now you've got what other roosters; relatives maybe, but it seems it's from roosters from other groups more than tribe relatives. Now we have other groups.
Now you've got at least two tribes of the same species.
So, tribe I find adds some dimensions that flock doesn't.

Perhaps you would like to link some of them. In the one I excerpted above more than 80% of the observations were of single birds. https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...rescued-chickens-thread.1502267/post-28985256
That paper and others suggest a lot of fluidity in the composition of groups as hens go broody and separate off to incubate and then raise their chicks. The groups are indeed small - tiny even - most of the time. And sometimes gather into groups of up to 25 in that paper and about 30 in other papers I've read on it.

I don't understand what the relevance of sighting 80% single birds is.
Were the sightings of the single birds the same bird? Could they identify one bird from another? Seeing one bird on it's own doesn't mean it doesn't belong to a tribe. Lots more...
However, the paper does at least identify discrete groups of the same species which is what I believe we were on about. So I dare say to the others papers you presented bits of. I really don't see the need to waste my time on posting any further papers when we both know they will all describe (bar a couple of papers I recall where the jungle fowl were confined in a zoo) a number of small groups living in the studied area, when I know you have read exactly the same. You've even post a chart showing some kind of distribution.

I did ask you a question which you haven't answered.

Why is this?