Are your chickens tame????

[chickenmamalp]

Polish princess you are blessed first one to say all are tame .What do you have magic chicken fingers??????????????

 

[Choco Maran]

WE have about 55 to 60 hens about half are tame and the rest are coming along.

They are about 6 months. We have about 14 Roos 6 are handled aleast weekly. The others we can not get close to. Acouple fly up into are faces as we walk in to be petted. Servaler love to pick at the pant legs or shoes laces. My one buff EE{ Buffie} will jump up on the feeder or waterer every time we bring fresh food in and ride it all the way the its stand. Have had all but the 6 roos as day old and handled day while in the brooder. The 6 roos we rescued from being sunday dinner. They weren't handled at all as chicks. We treat all our animals as family and have a great deal of respect for them.

 

[8hipchicks]

We started out with 8 baby chicks in March. Since chickens are addictive and as a learned more about different breeds we added 4 pullets (2 rescue chickens from a "chicken farm" and 2 from an organic farm).

All are tame, come when they are called, put themselves to bed at night, jump on laps, and like to cuddle.

The babies were easy to tame because they spent their early months in a guest bedroom and then our porch. We handled a couple of times a day their first month and constantly after that.

The farm pullets were pretty wild when we got them but since we quarantined them on the porch for a month and spent alot of time with them they seemed to eventually figure out that they could relax, chill out, and be a part of the family.

 

[ijon1]

My chickens are so tame I can hardley walk in the coop. I have to watch that I don't step on their feet. I have one Ameraucana that flies to meet me.

 

[bukbugack]

I think almost any chicken can be conditioned to come when called. Just give them a treat every day and use the same call while they are enjoying the treat (I say "chick-chick). Sometimes I regret having done this as my birds can be pretty annoying at times, getting underfoot and trying to "help" when I'm working in the garden.
Actual "friendliness", that is, a bird that does'nt mind being approaced and touched, seems to be genetic. Within a given flock there are always some birds which will be friendly and others which are not so much, despite them all being exposed to the same conditioning.

 

[ThePolishPrincess]

Quote:
Lol, it depends on what you make of the word 'tame'. To me, 'tame' means domestic and subdued. I can't honesty say that I can just pick up any one of my birds without getting a struggle, but they all come close to me when I'm just sitting around reading or something. My more skittish ones still sit not 6 inches from me on a given day, which I wouldn't have thought possible a year ago (depending on the ones). But some have a hard time letting me pick them up and truely coming out of their shells. Living things are all a bit diverse.

I'm just a kid. I have time to dedicate to hanging around and socializing my birds. Time is something I treasure. We have friends with chickens and theirs are either totally afraid of human contact or mean as snakes. It makes me feel better to actually 'know' my chickens.

For what it's worth, my chickens don't like to be pet.

They tend to like when I hold them or feed them. The best way to show them that you do them no harm and want their company is to hand-feed from day one. Grab some chick feed from their bowl and actually feed them from your hands. My favorites have always been the ones eager take food from my palm when they were just chicks.

I've found males harder to tame than females. They lack some trust. Hand-feeding is your best bet to get them friendly. But for the most part, you'll always have those individuals who don't want much to do with you. Everyone has those. Mine have been roosters, who grew from anti-social to mean to human-attacking and had to be gotten rid of. I've weeded them out of my flock.

 

[Malou-La-Croix]

I have 2 golden comets and one is so tame she rides on my shoulder when I am walking the dog around the neighborhood. She never tries to fly off, and it is so cute because she cocks her head and sings to herself as she takes in the scenery. I love the double takes from people in passing cars too. I noticed mine became much more tame after they started laying, and I always go outside with a few raisins to "sweeten" the deal.

 

[beachchickie]

I think you have to keep holding and petting and giving them snacks. They all go through a "shy" phase where they don't want to be handled. I just kept picking them up especially in the am or in the evening when they go to roost. Once they start to lay they squat and they are all yours. Just keep it up so they don't get skiddish.

 

[azygous]

Hah! I was just going to post and ask if anyone has hens like mine who love to cuddle and be held. Last year when I got three Brahma pullets, they were all extremely cuddly. All I had to do was go into the pen and sit down on a stump, call "Come on you guys!" and they were all three in my lap in a fraction of a second! This continues now into their adulthood.

In spring I got a bunch of Wyandotte baby chicks, two days out of the egg, and I was determined they'd be as tame and cuddly as the Brahmas. I handled them every day, but they would all screech in fear at being picked up.

They are six months old now, but just one of them has become as affectionate as the Brahmas, though they'll all climb and roost on my legs if I sit down. I don't know if this has anything to do with Irene being the only really tame one, but she's the only Golden-laced out of all the rest which are Silver-laced. Irene is also lowest in the whole pecking order. However, she has very jealous tendencies, and will peck at any other hen who is in my lap.

All of the gang will come running when I call, "Come on you guys, come on!" A real quick way to get them to do that is to bring them a bag of tasty bark beetle worms two days in a row. Guaranteed to tame any herd!

A slight variation on this theme and maybe even more remarkable, is the case of my five year old Arcana hen Michelle. She had never experienced sex until a few weeks ago when my Wyandotte roo discovered the joy of sex. She would try to outrun him, but got nailed, then would spend the rest of the day hiding out from him in the coop. A time or two she would be lucky enough to be right at my feet when he was in hot pursuit, and I would snatch her up out of danger. Now when I notice Stan beginning to stalk her and she appears not to be aware, I only have to holler, "Michelle, look out!" She will perk up, look around to get a fix on Stan's location, and run to me to be picked up. If I'm sitting down, she'll jump into my lap. If my lap is occupied by another hen, or three, she'll hop up onto my shoulder.

The most remarkable aspect of all this is that she appears to know her name!

 

[lovinlife]

Anytime I go out to throw scratch, I yell the same thing "chick-EN!" and they've learned to come running for treats. The older ones teach the younger ones what that call means. I only feed scratch out of my hand, so they learn to trust me for treats. And I'll go into their pen in the evening when they're on the roost and pet their backs.

I don't feed my rooster, though. I keep him in the right place in MY pecking order- at the bottom. I let the hens eat first and he gets scratch that has fallen after I leave. I let him know regularly that he is not the boss. He does have his little section of the flock that runs with him, they're all EEs or Ameraucanas. Occasionally, I'll catch him and carry him around upside-down with his head pointing down. Since treating this rooster like I have (very differently than the mean ones in the past - I tried to tame them and only ended up with vicious roos), he has respected me and stays away. All the other roos I've had attacked anyone who came close.

One of my hens used to fly up to my shoulder, she doesn't do that anymore, but she loves to be held and cuddled. They get under my feet all the time looking for treats. Of my chickens, the EEs are the friendliest.