Things You Wish You Would Have Known?

[Coop de Grass]

Chicken poop is yucky. But there's nothing you can get on you out there that won't come off with soap and water.

True. But I am going to figure out a way to wash my boots off outside, close to my back door if it's the last thing I do! I swap footgear as soon as I step in the back door into the kitchen, but the amount of stuff that comes in is ridiculous.

I am thinking of going through the back porch, leaving the foot stuff there with a pair of "house" shoes and then coming through the garage into the house. Of course, then the porch has debris in it, and we use it a lot!!!

What is a girl to do???

 

[lazy gardener]

True. But I am going to figure out a way to wash my boots off outside, close to my back door if it's the last thing I do! I swap footgear as soon as I step in the back door into the kitchen, but the amount of stuff that comes in is ridiculous.

I am thinking of going through the back porch, leaving the foot stuff there with a pair of "house" shoes and then coming through the garage into the house. Of course, then the porch has debris in it, and we use it a lot!!!

What is a girl to do???

Get used to poop. Or get a dog. Any thing that does find it's way into the house is cleaned up by my dog!

 

[gfvirga]

But how did you TEACH them to use the darn nipple waterers. We keep attempting and have yet to succeed!

I got mine to use the nipples by shoving their beak in the nipple until they felt the water. And during a hot day, I left them without the water bowl for a couple of hours and I used a long stick to touch the nipple to make the water sprinkle, they noticed the water and started to peck and to drink from it. Most of the others will copy each other

 

[chickrunfun]

True. But I am going to figure out a way to wash my boots off outside, close to my back door if it's the last thing I do! I swap footgear as soon as I step in the back door into the kitchen, but the amount of stuff that comes in is ridiculous.

I am thinking of going through the back porch, leaving the foot stuff there with a pair of "house" shoes and then coming through the garage into the house. Of course, then the porch has debris in it, and we use it a lot!!!

What is a girl to do???

Quote:
Originally Posted by lazy gardener

Get used to poop. Or get a dog. Any thing that does find it's way into the house is cleaned up by my dog!

So gross! I'm tellin ya, chicken shoes get swapped out by the door after you hose them or set them in a pan of water so you don't end up with concret poop on your soles! The put on your "house shoes and enter

clean floors!

 

[harley587]

So gross! I'm tellin ya, chicken shoes get swapped out by the door after you hose them or set them in a pan of water so you don't end up with concret poop on your soles! The put on your "house shoes and enter

clean floors!

The problem is when you follow the swap out rule and the other half doesn't!!

 

[ChickNanny13]

When they were younger, I did poop patrol with a long tong & plastic bag 2 - 3x day maybe more = exercise & gets me out of the house. Squirt bottle of lysol & paper towels picked up the icky ones, using tongs. They're older now got access to the Run/Coop & the whole back yard with shade covering, use a squirt bottle with far reaching stream to get them out of the patio. Now they learned the sound of the patio door opening & take off. They walk the perimeter of the patio & watch ... Kind of like our game and wouldn't trade it!

 

[EggSighted4Life]

When they were younger, I did poop patrol with a long tong & plastic bag 2 - 3x day maybe more = exercise & gets me out of the house. Squirt bottle of lysol & paper towels picked up the icky ones, using tongs. They're older now got access to the Run/Coop & the whole back yard with shade covering, use a squirt bottle with far reaching stream to get them out of the patio. Now they learned the sound of the patio door opening & take off. They walk the perimeter of the patio & watch ... Kind of like our game and wouldn't trade it!

I told my daughter yesterday we should try that. 1 acre and they wanna be on my patio! Glad to know it works.

I wish I had known a simple squirt bottle could teach a chicken to stay away from certain locations.... until your not looking!

 

[ChickNanny13]

I told my daughter yesterday we should try that. 1 acre and they wanna be on my patio! Glad to know it works.

I wish I had known a simple squirt bottle could teach a chicken to stay away from certain locations.... until your not looking!

Squirt bottle with a long stream works wonders but it's alot of watching & keeping track in the beginning. Kids can help with a squirt gun but may get bored or squirt to see the chickens reaction It works until you're not looking, you got it but I've found that mine eventually began spending less time in the patio, go to their Run/Coop to hang out.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

We found a better way to train our chickens. The trick is to make them think it's the environment or karmic justice disciplining them, not you.

Tie something scary but relatively harmless (a stick with plastic bags tied to it comes to mind) on the far end of the porch and run the rope in through a window or door that you can easily see out of but they can't necessarily see into. Then when you see the unwanted behavior (say, being on the patio) yank the string hard, dragging a suddenly moving, large loud object across the porch at terrifying speed! The chickens will freak and scatter. It DOES have to be scary enough to seem like a legitimate threat, and no being gunshy about pulling. If they think they can fake you out be staring the stick down, they need to learn that means getting hit with a stick covered in plastic bags (which should honestly be reasonably harmless). Otherwise your patio is theirs again.

Make it easy to reset by making it a two string system with the other string looped around something at the far end of the porch.

We did something similar to get two sets of new birds in a movable pen to stop fighting. It works well. If we heard the birds squabble we yanked a rope that caused a stick to hit the outside wall of the movable pen. It never touched a bird but it sure did shake the whole pen and spook them. They stopped fighting almost immediately.

 

[User395221]

I wish I'd known that chickens can't be relied on to lay in their nest box. I just found another egg which somebody decided to lay on the bottom of the guinea pig cage (there's an open area underneath). Seriously, of all the places to pick.... sigh