Taming The Flock: How To Be Your Chicken's Favorite Human🐓❤

Are you sick of having skittish chickens that don’t come up to you? Or perhaps you're a beginner and want to know how to socialize with your first flock! This could solely be the chicken’s personality, despite your best efforts to socialize with it, or perhaps it’s the “user’s error.”

In this article, "Taming The Flock: How To Be Your Chicken's Favorite Human", I’ll teach you step by step how to socialize with your chicks- the proper way! After performing these steps, you'll be amazed with the outcome. It won't be a hassle to handle your chickens anymore, and perhaps they'll even be cuddly! I followed these steps with my last batch of chicks, and I've never had a more cuddly bunch before. They hop onto my back and even my legs when I'm sitting down, and they are so incredibly curious.


Mabel, my very curious ISA brown pullet.

There are other benefits to putting in the effort to get your chickens used to you in the long run besides that they’ll be affectionate.

• It makes it easier to perform wellness checks on them, and treat them for illnesses and injuries. Bathing a chicken and giving it pills might not be as big as hassle as it might be trying to do those things to a nervous chicken.
• Increases your chances of having a nice rooster or even a hen that won’t turn on you.
• If your chickens like you, it will be much easier to get them inside their coop or to you in an emergency with a simple verbal call.
• And lastly, it will make carrying chickens from place to place a breeze.

Without further ado, let's get into the steps.


First Impressions

I like to call this first step “first impressions.”
When you first get your chicks, you want to give them a good impression of yourself right away. This term is usually used for humans when we first meet each other. If we’re going for a job interview, we want to give the employer a good impression. Or if we are going on a date, we want to give that special person a good first impression. In order to do this, we might wear nice clothes, with our hair groomed. And of course, we have to be kind in order to give someone a good impression.

To give chicks a first impression though, it’s a little different. Rather than the purpose of the first impression being to make the chicks feel a certain way about your looks or personality, the purpose is for them to get to know you and to get them comfortable with you.

If you pick up your chicks from a hatchery or farm store (such as Tractor Supply), you should do this first impression stage in the car ride home. It’s best if you have someone else in the car with you that is not driving.
If you pick your chicks up from the post office, you can do the same.

The car ride home is a very stressful experience for baby chicks! They are in a large moving structure that often goes over potholes or bumps that may scare them. It’s often cold for them, too.

Socializing with your chicks during the car ride is a great time for the First Impression stage because they need to be comforted. In a more stressful situation like this is when they’ll most easily imprint on you, as rough as it may sound.

Here are the steps to the First Impression stage:

1. Use your warm hands to put over top or on the sides of the chicks.
This feels like a mother hen sitting on top of them to warm them. Do this for a while.


My three newborn chicks- Dan, Mabel, and Myrtle.

2. Pick up the chicks and let them crawl on you!
As weird or gross as it may sound to you, let yourself be the chicks' junglegym! If you like chickens that may hop on your back when they’re older, this is exactly the way to teach them. Put them on your shoulders so that they can cuddle up against your neck. Ideally, you should have a towel on yourself!


Mabel and Myrtle resting by my neck.

3. Nap time
If it’s uncomfortable for you to have the chicks next to your neck, you can warm them with the front of your body instead. First, place the chick on a towel or other cushy item on your lap. Then, lean your body gently and lightly onto the chick like a mother hen.


Baby Myrtle laying on a Sherpa sweatshirt (not ideal.)

You can interchangeably use these steps. If the chicks are feeling more active, let them climb on you. Or if they’re getting sleepy, let them take as long as a nap as they want to. Feel free to put them back in their box whenever.


At Home

Once you’ve arrived back home, put the babies into their brooder and let them be for the rest of the day. What seems like a small car ride to you is a draining, scary experience for little chicks!

I suggest providing electrolytes in their water to boost their energy and health. This is extremely important especially if you mail ordered your chicks. As tempting as it may be, please do not handle your chicks for the rest of that day.

Additionally, teach your chicks where to eat and drink by tapping the food and water with your finger and dipping their beaks in the water. It may not seem like it, but this is a big bonding moment for you and your babies. You’re basically playing the role of mother hen teaching her chicks where to find food and water. This is one way that chicks get imprinted on a mother hen!


Every Day Thereon

After the arrival day, you can socialize with your chicks more! The warming of the chicks with your body isn’t important anymore as long as they have their heat lamp.

Let them crawl on you, take a nap on your shoulders or in your hands. Just make sure that you have some baby wipes handy for “accidents”!
You should do this in 5-10 minute intervals throughout the day whenever you’re available. Make sure that you set them down in their brooder when they start shivering or cheeping loudly (which likely means they’re cold.) Even if a chick doesn’t show signs of being cold, always make sure you keep your visitation sessions short.

Don’t feel bad if you can’t commit to visiting with your chicks often! Even once a day is enough, as long as you make sure that you hold your chicks as soon as they’re well rested and settled in to their new environment (remember, this usually takes at least a day for them to rest after their long journey so please leave them be for the first day.)

You might be wondering why you should hold your chicks immediately. During the first three days of a chick’s life, they undergo a “sensitive period” in which they “filial imprint.” Especially during this time you should make absolutely sure that you hold and talk to your chicks for them to imprint on you. At the end of this 3-day imprinting stage, chicks are no longer able to imprint, therefore you’ve missed your chance of getting your chicks to like you.

After your chicks are fully-feathered, you can increase your visiting time or “socializing sessions” because you don’t have to worry about them getting chilly too fast. It’s still important to keep your socializing sessions on the shorter side, though. In order to not lose the trust you gained between you and your birds by doing these steps, it's important to visit with even your adult chickens at least every few days to preserve that bond forever.


Mabel resting on my head, and Dan on my back. Myrtle, who is in fact NOT a brown leghorn (got scammed), perching on my leg.

Treats

We all know how much chickens love treats! They will pretty much do anything to get a tasty morsel into their beaks. The age that chicks can eat treats varies depending on the source of information and individual opinion. Many sources say about 4 weeks. As always, treats should be a “snack”, and their regular feed should be the “main course.” Make sure that they always have access to chick grit.


Treats for chicks include:

Dried mealworms
Black soldier fly larvae (or BSF larvae)
Rolled oats
Hard boiled egg yolk
Scrambled eggs
Seeds
Chicken-safe fruits (such as watermelon, bananas, apples, etc.)
Chicken-safe vegetables (such as lettuce, squash, corn, and tomatoes.)

First, you want to crush/chop up the treat into smaller pieces to make it easier for the baby chicks to swallow using their tiny beaks. Using the treat of choice, put some into your hand and simply let them eat out of it! This gets them used to your hands so that they are less afraid of them when you’re trying to pick them up or even treat a wound for example. You can also use treats to teach them to come when called. This is handy when you need to do a head count of your chickens or you need them to get in the coop for whatever reason. Here are some silly call ideas!

• “Here chicky-chickies!”
• “Chickies!”
• “Chickens!”
• “Buh buh buh” (to mimic the sound of tidbitting)
• A kissy sound
• Clicker button (usually used to train dogs)

In order to teach them to come when called, just offer your chicks treats and use your sound of choice so that they soon associate that sound with yummy snacks. If you think about it, this is exactly what a rooster or a mother hen does!


Chillin' With Your Birds- Through The Eyes Of A Chicken

Even the simple act of being near your chickens and getting down to their level to visit with them is a form of socialization. After all, that’s how chickens get to know each other! They don’t let other chickens perch on top of each other (except to mate...) and they don’t hold each other (that would be super disturbing.) Instead, their physical presence is used as a simple way to get used to each other.

So, next time you’re outside, crouch down to their level, and maybe offer them a little leaf. Perhaps even gently pick off a pine shaving off your hen’s back. Little acts like this are not what us humans think of when we hear the words “socialize with your chickens.” People tend to overcomplicate things and teach others how to show affection to other creatures as a human being interacting with an animal, rather than how to interact with them the way that animals of the same species act around each other.

I have discovered simple gestures or “methods of socialization” to use with your chickens by watching my own chickens interact with each other. They don’t use extremely complex body language or verbal language to communicate with each other. They are simple enough that you can learn them, and why chickens do them. You don’t even necessarily need the internet to find out why. All you need to do is study your birds. What happened before they did that certain thing? What other behaviors are accompanying it? You have to ask yourself a series of questions and play the role of a detective to find the answer. Then, you can communicate to your chickens using different calls and body language! Although, it may look and sound a little different in a human….


What Not To Do When Socializing With Your Chickens

1. Force your chickens to do anything they don’t want to do!
2. Create a stressful situation for them to make them imprint on you. You might do it without even knowing. For example, some people buy just one single chick. Since it doesn’t have a mother or any fellow chick friends, it is forced to rely on, be comforted by, and interact with you. You are the sole being that the chick ever sees therefore is basically made to imprint on you because it doesn’t really have any choice.
3. Replace their normal diet of crumble with treats. Treats should only be fed in moderation (tiny amounts) every so often.
4. Ignore your chick’s cues that tell you when they want to be put back in the brooder.
5. Let small children hold the chicks. They often squeeze the chicks to death.

What To Do When Socializing With Your Birds

1. Limit your visitation time to only a few sessions a day to allow them plenty of time to eat, drink, sleep, and play.
2. Chop up treats into tiny pieces to make it easier for the chicks to swallow.
3. Listen and watch for cues that tell you when to put your chick down.
4. Educate yourself and others on how to properly hold chicks.
5. Handle your adult chickens to continue the socializing process.


Thank you for reading "Taming The Flock: How To Be Your Chicken's Favorite Human"!!

I know you'll be overjoyed with the results after you try this process. If you try it, let me know how it worked for you! Please post any suggestions you have on how I can better this article.