Anybody have any ideas for chicken entertainment?

[MsVicky]

My chickens like digging in the garden for bugs and taking dust baths.
They really like a pot full of nice fine dry dirt for their dustbaths. Sometimes two or three of them will get in together.

 

[Pretty Chickens]

That is very good for the chickens. The are actually getting clean.

 

[N2nicole]

I made my chickens a treat thing with a toilet paper roll and some peanutbutter and chicken treats. They where scared of it at first but once they figure out
That thare is food on it. They whent crazy over it!

 

[JiDan]

You are right about ME being my chicken's best toy. They free range and are always under my feet somehow, especially when I am near the greenhouse.

 

[Sylvester017]

Mine were the same way. Picky Picky Picky! However, I mixed up some cut up zucchini and yellow squashes and cooked it with some left over rotel until it was soft. It was going to go to waste anyway so I figured I would take ONE MORE SHOT at trying to get the the Princess Pullets and King of the Roost cockerels to eat their veggies... IT WORKED!! They loved it. It was like a feeding frenzy!!

We found cooked brown rice cooked in a dash of salt goes well mixed in with food we want them to eat. Wetting down the backyard with mudholes is their favourite past-time for scratching around. Wetness always attract them for a long time of scratching, digging, and dust-bathing. Free-range is easier for entertaining than penned-up birds. If you can swing an hour or two of free-range for hens they will have a blast - and if you can't then use a mobile tractor to move them around to fresh wet grass areas. People pen up animals but in the wild they love their freedom so a bit of free-range time will keep them healthy and happy.

 

[JiDan]

now that I think about it I believe that the chickens are my favorite toy. My wife & I get so much enjoyment out of watching them. They do so many crazy things. Like especially take the compost pile and spread it out all over the yard. I have fun raking it back up. So I guess is really a team effort in turning the compost over.

 

[Sylvester017]

Back when I was growing up & had a few chickens, my one favorite little fluffy cheeked bantam hen- ingeniously named "Fluffy" by me- used to follow me around the yard like a puppy, just begging me to turn over more rocks & logs (we live in the south & my stepdad has a typical "redneck'' yard with plenty of junk to turn over). I would cluck to her like a mama hen does when she finds food for her chicks (that's how I do today to let my current flock know Mama's got din-din lol) & she'd come running as fast as her little legs would carry her to get the fresh rollie pollies & worms. I live in a subdivision now, so not much stuff in the yard to find bugs under. It's kinda sad really, I missed doing that!

Buy some crickets at the pet store and turn them loose in your chicken yard and keep a lot of paver stones, rocks, or planks in the yard wetted down and the crickets will multiply on their own to provide plenty of natural reproducing bugs throughout the year. We hardly had any crickets a couple years ago but since having a garden and a paver stone patio they are everywhere. Provides the chickens with plenty of running exercise chasing the fast jumping critters and crickets are not a disgusting insect like grasshoppers, roaches, or destructive snails. The snails have been eradicated by the hens the first year of gardening so now crickets are their bugs of choice. One of our Silkies follows my DH around in the morning while he turns over rocks and stones for her to chase crickets. The crickets are good food for our garden lizards too. Smart lizards to escape the Eagle eyes of our hens!

 

[JiDan]

how did you get your chickens to eat slugs? Mine won't even touch them.I even gathered up some slugs and then porch chicken scratch on it and they still wouldn't get the slugs.

 

[sixcitychicks]

Mine like a fresh pile of garden dirt, a foil pie pan, new bedding, and when I did up their straw in the run, they think it's new again, and begin pecking. I want to try the bird swing, but I don't have room. Mind also like pulling the bark off dry logs, and they even have pecked a giant crator in one of them. I give them logs and branches to hop over and perch on.They also like grass with the roots and dirt attached.

 

[toysamarie]

We made chickens swings, they love them. Our chickens loved them so much we had to make another. Mine liked the PVC pipe ones more then the wooden swing. We also put an empty "mini keg" in the run they love standing on it and pecking at it.