Zackman23434
Chirping
- Jul 17, 2015
- 204
- 9
- 53
Hello, my chickens will be 9 weeks old on Friday. You can find the story in this thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1006673/story-of-a-boy-and-his-chickens
The problem lately is when dark comes around all of them jump in the coop and run to the corner and squak and cry and jump on each other. I have tried placing them on roost but refuse to pick up all 14 chickens over and over.
The last two evenings I noticed a new development. Some of the chickens are getting their roost instinct but the problem is they want to do it on me!
When I open up the run door for the last couple hours of daylight I also tend to open the main coop door. This is where their accustomed to go in until I break them of it, anyways the reason I say this is because when I go to close them up they will come out of their crying sleep corner run over to me and begin giving me the pacing, and looking up at me with that I'm about to jump on you look. That happened a few different days and then they begin actually trying to roost on me. One actually landed in my cup of water I was holding up to my chest while I was standing in front of the coop door. Even when I placed them on the roost last night they just wanted to jump from the roost to me. Now, I will say typically Elvis my GLW likes to come sit on me about every 10 mins to say hI and bye when I'm sitting in the yard watching chicken tv. For the most part non of these chickens like to be touched. And even touching Elvis will cause him normally to jump off me.
I'm beginning to think they are associating me with safety or something because tonight I decided i needed to shut the people door on the coop and see if they would know to walk in the wide open run door and into the chicken door which they use all day. I ate dinner and watched as it got darker and darker, and as more chickens piled up to the people door staring up the white closed door trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually they all sat down in the open yard with not much light left outside and i knew I needed to show them. As soon as I walked out the door the entire flock got up in now much lower light then they would ever be outside, and came running to me from 50 feet away chirping and crying at my feet. I then began to walk to the run. They all followed like ducklings without the straight line. I went Inside the run bent down to the chicken door and pointed at it. They were all piled up at the run door at this point looking me but it only took a few seconds before every single one took my advice and came inside the run and into the chicken door. It really was adorable to see them all run to me and then follow me right into the area that seemed like a different continent to them 5 minutes before. But my point to all this rambling to to try and give as much behavioral detail as I can to figure out what's going on and if someone can help. Why am I a roost? I understand basic animal behavior and if I wAs sitting in a chair every night as the sun went down and was picking them up and setting them on me then I would become the roost. But literally one chicken sits on me and 1 or two others have done it a couple of times for less then a minute. So I can't figure out what's going on. During the day only a few really spend any time close to me but these last couple evenings they were looking to me as their mother or something. I just never have heard of these behaviors. A Google search turned up 0 links to chickens trying to roost on me.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1006673/story-of-a-boy-and-his-chickens
The problem lately is when dark comes around all of them jump in the coop and run to the corner and squak and cry and jump on each other. I have tried placing them on roost but refuse to pick up all 14 chickens over and over.
The last two evenings I noticed a new development. Some of the chickens are getting their roost instinct but the problem is they want to do it on me!
When I open up the run door for the last couple hours of daylight I also tend to open the main coop door. This is where their accustomed to go in until I break them of it, anyways the reason I say this is because when I go to close them up they will come out of their crying sleep corner run over to me and begin giving me the pacing, and looking up at me with that I'm about to jump on you look. That happened a few different days and then they begin actually trying to roost on me. One actually landed in my cup of water I was holding up to my chest while I was standing in front of the coop door. Even when I placed them on the roost last night they just wanted to jump from the roost to me. Now, I will say typically Elvis my GLW likes to come sit on me about every 10 mins to say hI and bye when I'm sitting in the yard watching chicken tv. For the most part non of these chickens like to be touched. And even touching Elvis will cause him normally to jump off me.
I'm beginning to think they are associating me with safety or something because tonight I decided i needed to shut the people door on the coop and see if they would know to walk in the wide open run door and into the chicken door which they use all day. I ate dinner and watched as it got darker and darker, and as more chickens piled up to the people door staring up the white closed door trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually they all sat down in the open yard with not much light left outside and i knew I needed to show them. As soon as I walked out the door the entire flock got up in now much lower light then they would ever be outside, and came running to me from 50 feet away chirping and crying at my feet. I then began to walk to the run. They all followed like ducklings without the straight line. I went Inside the run bent down to the chicken door and pointed at it. They were all piled up at the run door at this point looking me but it only took a few seconds before every single one took my advice and came inside the run and into the chicken door. It really was adorable to see them all run to me and then follow me right into the area that seemed like a different continent to them 5 minutes before. But my point to all this rambling to to try and give as much behavioral detail as I can to figure out what's going on and if someone can help. Why am I a roost? I understand basic animal behavior and if I wAs sitting in a chair every night as the sun went down and was picking them up and setting them on me then I would become the roost. But literally one chicken sits on me and 1 or two others have done it a couple of times for less then a minute. So I can't figure out what's going on. During the day only a few really spend any time close to me but these last couple evenings they were looking to me as their mother or something. I just never have heard of these behaviors. A Google search turned up 0 links to chickens trying to roost on me.
