Chicken oddities: what’s something you wish your chicken/chickens didn’t do?

[BDutch]

. Stupid cockerels who start to crow loudly in the morning. If they wouldn’t start to crow till after 8 during the week and 9.30 in the weekend, at least one of them could stay and become a real rooster.

And some of the thing others have mentioned, like:
. Chickens pooping on the terrace while they have a whole garden to poop in.
. Scratching for food next to the water container and a ceramic bowl.

 

[Appalachickens]

It's only happened once, but it was a chick jumping onto my shoulder then into my hair where she got hopelessly tangled and was freaking out, flapping and squawking. I got her untangled, but I'd like for that not to happen again!

 

[kattabelly]

Pulling out all the clean, dry bedding I just put in the little shelter they like to use on especially wet and windy days, so they can go back to napping on damp soil and poo.

 

[Littlefoxhat]

I wish my Salmon Faverolles would stop letting the others pull out her feathers. She's got a Friar Tuck look going on... and she's never grown her beard in.

 

[MapleLaurelFarms]

Okay for the most part, I love chicken behaviors and have found ways to thwart the ones that I don't (e.g. scratching bedding and waste into the water container, etc) but here's the top 5 things that mine do that leave me scratching my head.

- Constantly hanging out around the house to dig in my landscape mulch while ignoring the lush ACRES of pastureland that they could be using.

- Scared to go outside in snow. I've heard of chickens that don't mind it, but in all my years of chicken keeping, I've never had a chicken that was willing to even attempt it.

- Live together just fine for several years until one day, one decides to become a bully and starts pecking all the other ladies until they bleed. (I've only had this happen once, and I tried about everything to stop it but finally had to rehome her.)

- Digging around the edges of ANYTHING, ALL the time, like the run and coop foundations for goodness sake, but refusing to clean up around the edge of a fence line.

- Eating all the "good" plants that I'd like to keep around but ignoring the ones that I'd like gone.