Keeping Chickens entertained

[LakeMurrySC]

Quote:

Thats Great!!!

I am going to buy one of these when I go to order my Bantams... I have never seen any reviews... Could be fun?

http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/chickens/Chicken-Fun-Toy-p963.aspx

 

[dwegg]

Give them a bale of wheat straw...

 

[roxyblue]

I nahve a bird bell that I hand just enough of the ground that they have to jump to get any seeds of it, it will keep them entertained for a week or so and they are cheep at lows
($2.59)

 

[Wisher1000]

Put them all inside the coop as you scatter scratch, bread, greens, or any other treat on the floor of their run. Then cover the floor with a thick layer of leaves, shavings or grass clippings. Then just open the door. It taks a while for them to inspect the new look of the run, then they have a ball finding the treasures underneath! If a tomato gets soft before we eat it, I toss it in the run for a quick game of chicken soccer...and I do mean quick!

 

[swatchick]

I've got a variety of perches placed at a lot of different heights in the run, their old brooder -- which is a 2'x2' box with a window on one side and a door on the other and a hinge opening top (for cleaning), and a bale of straw which is currently sitting partly on top of the brooder and partly against the side of the run to create something of a tunnel around the brooder. They LOVE the tunnel, and they also seem to love being able to fly up to such a wide range of heights -- they can jump up as low as a foot onto a perch, or as high as about five feet. I also toss a lot of straw and leaves around the run, which they like to scratch at to find tasty bits, and lots of veggie scraps they can work on.

I would just put out there, though, that it can be easy, in my opinion, to misread their behavior as boredom. For example, while humans seem to have a hard time just sitting in one place and experiencing life as it comes, I haven't observed the same discomfort in most other animals. As long as they have enough space to stretch their wings a bit (literally and figuratively), I suspect that when they are just sitting/standing/lying about, they are simply enjoying life in a way many of us have forgotten how to do. (In my experience, when they are bored, they begin to take it out on each other.) And when they get all crazy excited when they see us, I suspect it is often just because food is such an appealing thing and we so often come to them bearing it.

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

Quote:

Thats Great!!!

I am going to buy one of these when I go to order my Bantams... I have never seen any reviews... Could be fun?

http://www.mypetchicken.com/catalog/chickens/Chicken-Fun-Toy-p963.aspx

My girls love their treat ball. They were a little skiddish at first but figured it out. They get excited when they see me grab it to fill it up. They "kick" it all over their run.

 

[kkourie]

DH made a chicken mobile one afternoon. They loved it. Check out our Youtube video:

 

[<3 N.C Chicken Chick <3]

Thanks guys. All these ideas are great. How long dose it take them to learn to kick the ball?

 

[elmo]

Quote:
Um, television? That's a new one.

 

[frostbite]

Yeah, I laughed at that one.

I hope everyone knows I was just kidding about the flat screen TV for the coop.

Also, I agree that boredom in animals isn't what it is for us. They have curiosity, but they don't mind doing nothing. Most animals, their two favorite things to do are eating and doing nothing.

It is true that when their environment is truly unstimulating, like a cage, especially if it's overcrowded, animals can exhibit some dysfunctional behaviors. But it's more from stress than boredom.