{"id":577450,"date":"2026-04-01T01:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/577450\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:08:09","slug":"human-touch-leaves-chicks-feeling-happy-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/577450\/","title":{"rendered":"Human touch leaves chicks feeling happy, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/chick.jpg\" alt=\"human touch and chicks\" class=\"wp-image-37841 lazyload\"  \/>Photo: valdasds1 123rf<\/p>\n<p>Chicks, just like pets, also benefit from gentle human touch, new research in the UK has revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Scientists at the University of Bristol have discovered that gentle human interactions do not only prevent fear in baby chicks but also trigger positive emotions. The findings offer new insights into how early-life handling affects the welfare of young farm animals.<\/p>\n<p>Early interactions with humans are known to influence farm animals\u2019 behaviour and stress levels, yet it has remained unclear whether animals really experience gentle handling as emotionally positive.<\/p>\n<p>In this study published in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/animal-welfare\/article\/gentle-human-interactions-trigger-positive-emotions-in-chicks\/91BFFAAD75C51547F8EA47A61885720D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Animal Welfare<\/a>, researchers from used a \u2018conditioned place preference\u2019 test, a method commonly used in neuroscience to explore what animals remember of past experiences. The key principle is simple\u2014animals should develop a learned preference for places where they feel good\/better.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty domestic chicks from a laying hen strain were trained in a two\u2011chamber set\u2011up, each marked with different colour cues. After their initial preferences were recorded, the chicks completed a series of pairing sessions.<\/p>\n<p>One chamber used gentle human handling, slow stroking and soft speech, and the other used a neutral human presence, still and silent.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Crucially, the chicks did not avoid the chamber linked to neutral human presence, indicating their behaviour suggested attraction to the gentle\u2011handling environment rather than avoidance of the neutral human presence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur findings show that gentle human contact can trigger positive emotions in young chicks,\u201d the study\u2019s principal investigator Dr Ben Lecorps said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 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\u2019 welfare.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: valdasds1 123rf Chicks, just like pets, also benefit from gentle human touch, new research in the UK&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[34126,23792,64,63,283221,188544,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-577450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-animal-behaviour","9":"tag-animal-welfare","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-chicks","13":"tag-farm-animals","14":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}