Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Junior high student is wanting to use baby chicks 1-3 days old....keep records of feed, growth rates, temperature, ect
....not fir sure on this? Would it be life sciences, zoological science? Would it be best to save have chart of largest chicken, smallest chicken and overall average weight of all the chickens....is this the type of thing we need for science fair? Guidance please. ..ty

Hi,

YES! Keep track of all the data you will need for your results and conclusion.

You didn't say what your hypothesis is, or what the variables are to help you answer the hypothesis. For example, if you hypothesize that feeding the chicks one brand of food vs another brand, will give the same growth rates, you will feed half one food and half the other food and keep track of all chicks weights each day. You need to know which ones ate which food... etc.

Does that help? Please let me know if you need more help or other questions come up!

Tonya

Hypothesis. ...we haven't nailed that yet...we really are trying to come up with something were they can all be fed and watered the same. ..special brooding area, no way to separate sets...could it possible be something like, I believe I can keep ample food water and light 24 hrs a day and grow a 9lb chicken in 40 days?

Are the chickens tagged somehow so you can follow the growth pattern of an individual chick?

Yes, they will each have a numbered band

Ok that's good. Let me think about this.

Can you tell male from female?

Well its not exact but we have to sex them to the best of our ability sometimes as they age we may realize we were wrong day 1

As long as you can sex them by the end of the experiment it doesn't matter. You can track the chicks individually by tags and accurately assign sex later if it matters for your data analysis. Your biggest hurdle is to come up with a hypothesis.

Cheers,
Colin

Ok...thank you

Yes, use the correct sex assignment from the end of your experiment. Can you use a hypothesis that answers a question related to differences by sex? For example, Is there growth rate difference between male and female chicks from days 1-20 fed the same feed on the sam schedule?

Does that help?

Tonya