12 week old Hens missing their Rooster?

[yay-for-chickens!]

Well I have 3 12 week old Hens and Had a 12 week old rooster but I gave him away as I live in town. This was two days ago, and for the past two days I have had to deal with some chicken runs/escaping!

The other night I couldn't find them to put them away and they were all in separate trees around the yard, and when I came home yesterday all 3 were out in my neighbors driveway and last night when my girlfriend went to put them away once again one of them was like 6 feet up in a tree....

Are they just missing their poor blondie? (the rooster) Or is this them telling me it's time to move their run again because they are bored with the same piece of grass? Anyone have any suggestions? I was going to go to the store and buy some scratch to keep them busy, and move their coop/run

thanks!

 

[Omran]

I will lock them in thier coop for few days and then you will see them going back to thier coop everynight, if they start to think that they can roost on trees, then that will be a problem in winter and in bad weather.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Mine are 12 weeks also, and i think (these are just my musings) that this must be the age when they get really excited about the discovery that they can fly. That coupled with the loss of the roo is probably why they're in the trees.

I agree with Omran. I think you should lock them up for a couple of days - kind of a retraining, since the roo is gone. I think that they'll also do a better job of staying together after you do that. It'll give them a little chance to work out some pecking order. It sounds like the roo was a good leader.

It sounds like you don't let them free range? You have them in a run?

If that's right, then i would definitely put some netting on top of the run so that they can't fly out.