Early interactions with humans are known to influence farm animals’ behaviour and stress levels, yet it has remained unclear whether animals really experience gentle handling as emotionally positive.
In this study, published in Animal Welfare today [30 March], researchers from Bristol Veterinary School used a “conditioned place preference” test, a method commonly used in neuroscience to explore what animals remember of past experiences. The key principle is simple, animals should develop a learnt preference for places where they felt good/better.
Twenty domestic chicks from a laying hen strain were trained in a two‑chamber set‑up, each marked with different colour cues. After their initial preferences were recorded, the chicks completed a series of pairing sessions.
One chamber with gentle human handling, slow stroking and soft speech, and the other with a neutral human presence, still and silent.
When tested after the conditioning sessions, the chicks consistently spent more time in the chamber previously associated with gentle human handling, demonstrating a positive association with this experience.
Crucially, the chicks did not avoid the chamber linked to neutral human presence, indicating their behaviour suggested attraction to the gentle‑handling environment rather than avoidance of the neutral human presence.
Dr Ben Lecorps, Senior Lecturer at Bristol Veterinary School, and the study’s principal investigator, said: “Our findings show that gentle human contact can trigger positive emotions in young chicks. The study demonstrates how simple, calm handling has the potential to shape the human-animal relationship from fear-inducing to positive and consequently improve the chicks’ welfare.”
The study’s results highlight how humans can play a meaningful role in shaping animals’ early affective experiences, with potential benefits for husbandry practices and welfare assessment frameworks.
Paper
‘Gentle human interactions trigger positive emotions in chicks’ by Javiera Calderon Amor et al. in Animal Welfare