Chicken herding

[FarmerJamie]

Brown paper lunch sack half filled with plain popped popcorn. Shake loudly with "popcorn, girls...." and the thundering herd will magically appear.....

 

[PepsNick]

I use "herding sticks" that we find on the ground from out bamboo trees. Long and thin, and work great. Just DON'T let them get under sticker bushes!

 

[myminicooper]

BOSS works some of the time. I let them free range all day while I'm home but anytime I leave to go somewhere I lock them in the pen. If it's been awhile since they have been locked up they will readily chase after the BOSS i toss in their pen, but if they have been locked up more than 2 times in a row they wont go in, at which point I use a broom to gently get them in.

 

[Qi Chicken]

I say "Heeeere chick chick chick. treat treat treat" And they come running. Some of them can't seem to find the run door. It never moves, but sometimes they can't find it. Then for the ones that can't find the door I give them little trail of treats that they can follow then I reach down and nab em.

 

[schmije]

We call it "Chicken Herding 101", and we've gotten pretty good at it.

We have a long white stick with a hook on one end in case we need to catch somebody by the leg. They're all terrified of the white stick, and they run in the opposite direction. If we're really serious, we'll take a piece of chicken wire fence and make a barrier to guide them where we want them to go.

 

[kcsunshine]

I walk out the back door with a piece of bread and they come from everywhere and follow me back to the run.

Funny birds.

 

[bambi]

I tell my border collie to go get the chickens and after she has round them up I tempt them with treats as the BC keeps any stragglers from escaping I enjoy round up time

 

[Naughty]

I have a double-whammy style... I get the hannah montana bucket that always has treats... but I also have a big post in the middle of the chicken yard - that has a bell - I make sure I always ring the bell when I feed them - so now if they hear the bell - they come running. It has been helpful when my lil houdini rooster gets out.

 

[shortstaque]

So the recurrent theme is treats and some sort of pole. Naughty, sounds like you have Pavlovian chickens, ring the bell and they start salivating and going back to the coop. The thing that made me reach for the leaf blower was that they were in an area with lots of undergrowth where it is difficult for a human to get through, so we were able to blow them in the right direction.

 

[elmo]

I do chicken herding several times a day, since I move my flock into ...let's see here...five different pens/coops every day. I use a small rake in one hand and a litter scoop taped to a long handle in the other. Having something in both hands helps guide them in the right direction.

They key thing is to have the doors to whatever pens I don't want them to go into closed. Usually when I shoo them in the direction of the right pen one or two will get the right idea and the rest will follow...except for "Wrong Way" Scooter. I think you can guess how she got her name.