In biology a phenomena called "supernormal stimulation" or "superstimulus" is known. Animals react on stimuli with certain types of behavior, for instance a sea gull chick will react to the presence of its parent by begging for food from the crop. However, the begging reaction is not stimulated by the occurance of the head of the mother as a total, but specifically by the typical red spot on the beak that its mother shows when it has chicks. Enlarging this red spot will make the reaction of the chick stronger, regardless of the shape and form of the rest of the beak and head. A famous biologist, Niko Tinbergen, showed that a red knitting needle with some white bands resulted in a much stronger response from the chick than an accurate three dimensional model of the parent's head and beak. 

This means that the reaction of an animal can be intensified by "enlarging" the elements in normal stimuli that are responsible for triggering a behavioral reaction. Another famous researcher, Konrad Lorenz, showed for intance that birds prefer hatching eggs that are resembling there own eggs but are larger, even if they so abnormally large that they cannot sit on it anymore. This website deals with chickens, but also in humans this kind of behavior exists, not only resulting in cosmetic surgery but for instance also in the way food items are displayed in advertorials.

In our breeder farms we can sometimes use this phenomena in our advantage, for instance in male rearing.

If we have to keep males separate after rearing, for instance because we need them for spiking at a later moment, we have to avoid excessive fighting in the flock. In the first weeks after rearing it will not be too bad, but if we have to keep the males separate to a higher age some serious fighting for dominancy can occur. Fighting will not only result in damaged birds and mortality, but also in poor dominancy from the birds that are lower in the social ranking. A solution is to keep the birds at low density and/or low light intensity as than the fighting will reduce, but this is not always possible.

However, it is especially the red colouring of the comb and waffles that triggers the battle for dominancy and the fighting between males. We can use this by putting some red plastic soccer balls in our male flocks, if we need to reduce the agressiveness in that late rearing period. The red color of the balls might initiate the fighting, but as the ball will "escape" when it is attacked, the male will have the impression that he won the battle from a very big opponent and will remain its dominancy. By redirecting their dominant behavior through a superstimulus, we can sometimes reduce the agressiveness and fighting in a flock of only males.