Three days ago now we bought 2 mottled houdans from our favorite feed store. They are the cutest things ever and we are exited to finally have a crested variety on our farm, but one of them is driving us insane with her constant panicking and loud loud peeping. Shes so loud we can hear her outside of the front door and in the back yard. She takes a break every now and then but starts up again frantically peeping and running the length of the cage poking her beak through looking for a way out! We have never had this behavior from any of the chicks we have ever raised and although these are our last two of our chicken season we would like some peace in the house. Does any one know of any solutions? They are probably a week or so old in an old rat cage with a heat lamp hanging above. We used this for all of our chicks this year so that's probably not the problem.
*UPDATE*
Well, it looks like we are down to the option of just getting them a third little buddy, nothing is working, wrapping the cage made them even more upset, the radio didn't phase them, and the stuffed animal almost killed them(They were so scared of it!) The only thing that really works is staying in the room with them, the minute they can't see us they freak out really loudly. I snuggle with them several times a day already, they aren't hand friendly just yet but I'm working on it, they chill out after a few seconds of being held and they rush the door when I open it. They are so funny because once the door opens they run for their lives and scream when I catch them lol. I want them to be the the most social birds we have, but not so social that they have separation anxiety D:
The Cochin chicks they had are the same age but are a bit bigger so we are going to get one for them. We have a big white cochin already and we haven't seen her in more than a month because shes living in a nesting box on top of some golf balls.
That's her in the front. She is Luffa and her buddy in the back Harlem.
*UPDATE*
Well, it looks like we are down to the option of just getting them a third little buddy, nothing is working, wrapping the cage made them even more upset, the radio didn't phase them, and the stuffed animal almost killed them(They were so scared of it!) The only thing that really works is staying in the room with them, the minute they can't see us they freak out really loudly. I snuggle with them several times a day already, they aren't hand friendly just yet but I'm working on it, they chill out after a few seconds of being held and they rush the door when I open it. They are so funny because once the door opens they run for their lives and scream when I catch them lol. I want them to be the the most social birds we have, but not so social that they have separation anxiety D:
The Cochin chicks they had are the same age but are a bit bigger so we are going to get one for them. We have a big white cochin already and we haven't seen her in more than a month because shes living in a nesting box on top of some golf balls.
That's her in the front. She is Luffa and her buddy in the back Harlem.
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