How to train a misbehaving chicken

[Joanne Fredrich]

People, I need help, and I am hoping one of you can help me. Here is the story. The current flock is 30 chickens which includes 4 roosters, half are five years old, the other half turning 1-year old in early June. They have a lovely coop and an enclosed chicken yard that is reasonably large (we live on the coast in WA 75 miles north of Seattle, with a lot of bald eagles). While they have access to the outdoors, I like them to also have access to open pasture. We live on several acres with also a herd of alpaca, so about 3 or so acres are divided into three pastures which I rotate the alpaca in. Idea is the chickens always have access to whatever extended pasture the alpaca can access, for at least 3-4 hours a day. Short story: the chickens have plenty of pasture to explore. Adjacent to the animal area is a barn and green house and a series of (large) raised beds, several 30’ long and 3-4 feet high and then also a large number of galvanized planters. This (people) growing area is divided from the pastures by a fence that is 4’ high. Some of the chickens can of course fly that, I have 18 different breeds at present. This has not been a problem before, there are regulars who fly over, and root around the gravel base and even though the tomatoes have fruit close to the ground, never even touch them (though I would be fine if they did), or else from this area, they access the orchard with fruit trees and root around there - no problem - it is the same small set of birds who do this, and I know where to find them when I bring them in for the day and who is more likely to be missing and where they will be. To get to the problem: of the new (younger) birds, I have two white-faced black Spanish. One of them has become obsessed with flying over the 4’ fence, and then flying up into two of the four big raised beds. One has strawberries, the one more likely to find her in is one that I plant vegetables in. So she destroyed about half of the 50 radishes that were just germinating about 3 weeks ago. (The trigger point was moving the alpaca to a new pasture, which provided a long length of additional fence line adjacent to the vegetable area). I’ve tried running in and scaring her to the very best of my ability, but that has done nothing. So I have taken to physical punishment, which I do not believe in, but in this case, consider it a nicer option than her meeting her maker. She knows absolutely she is going to be punished when I catch her in this area, basically she is getting spanked on the face harder than I have ever hit an animal (actually, with alpaca and also house cats, I don’t believe I have ever hit an animal before), then I thrown her back into where she is meant to be. I am not however convinced she is getting the message (though today out for 4 hours, she only had to be disciplined once). Problem is that in a few weeks, I will be transplanting out all the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, et cetera into all of these raised beds and the galvanized steel planters. I really don’t want to have to kill her. She is a good layer and other than this a nice bird (well, perhaps not the nicest, she does have a “poor” disposition as McMurray states clearly, and tends to peck at other birds for no reason at all - but the birds can all deal with that). Question is: how do I deal with this. Thanks in advance to anyone that replies and I apologize that you had to read such a long description.

 

[Yardmom]

I have never attempted to punish a bird. I don't know if it could be done in a way a bird would understand.
I would focus on how to keep her from getting into the gardens by clipping wings or building better fences.

 

[Joanne Fredrich]

I have never attempted to punish a bird. I don't know if it could be done in a way a bird would understand.
I would focus on how to keep her from getting into the gardens by clipping wings or building better fences.

Thank you for your reply, I appreciate your taking the time. Well, to debunk one mystery, the bird definitely understands that she is going to be punished if caught in this area. I can walk around her in the pasture(s) where chickens are allowed, and it is not like she runs, I can walk by her one foot away. But she knows she is headed towards a negative outcome when I catch her in this people-only area. That is absolutely certain. Being nostalgic, I have a collection of stuffed animals from my children, all adults for a long time now. So I did set up a bald eagle stuffed animal and also a monkey, on the ledge of these side beds yesterday. I will see how that works. I would hate to trim her wings as we do have predators and while I do the best that I can, I cannot be locally present at all times, and so I would hate to deprive any of them from being able to escape a bald eagle or a hawk, the resident bald eagles pair is present from the fall through to early summer, then they go fishing up river and everyone is happy with them away.

 

[Altairsky]

Trim one wing, phisical punishment doesn't work with birds. They understand it, but they're too stubborn to care about it.

 

[Joanne Fredrich]

Trim one wing, phisical punishment doesn't work with birds. They understand it, but they're too stubborn to care about it.

I appreciate the advice, thank you for taking the time to provide this. Well, I was all set to trim the flight feathers on one wing, as advised. Then I thought I would wait until the bird violated the fence and went into the people-vegetable area. So it has been several days now, and the bird seems to have lost interest and it has been a non-issue.

 

[Mrs. K]

They just don't have much of a brain.

Know that in the time it took me to tell my mother I could not talk on the phone (in the old days when the phones were connected to walls) my chickens had destroyed my garden, just planted.

You need to sell this bird, or build better fences.
Mrs K

 

[RubelliteRose]

As others have said, chickens cannot be trained with punishment. They simply are not capable of understanding it.
What you can do is add a second layer of fencing to your garden. In our area, Lowes carries 2 foot tall, 2" mesh chicken wire fairly inexpensively. If you don't care how it looks, an easy way to do this is attaching bamboo poles/ wood sticks to the top part of your existing fence with twine or zip ties. You can then attach the chicken wire to the poles. If you don't think 2 additional feet will be enough height, you can also try to find deer netting to extend the height of your fence.