Chickens pecking and jumping up at my 3-year-old.

[treehuggingjess]

My chickens have recently started pecking at my our feet thinking our toes are worms or something, so we have to make sure not to wear sandals outside. They also have twice now jumped up and pecked my 3-year-old's hand/arm. It doesn't hurt her - barely leaves a mark at all, but it scares her, so she cries and then wants to go inside instead of playing outside like she should a lot. They are otherwise friendly, gentle chickens, and they were raised by us from a few days old. I don't think they are being aggressive, but is there a way to discourage it? They are used to getting "treats" from me (kitchen scraps) daily, so I don't know if they do it because they think she has food in her hand or what. I don't always hand feed them the scraps anyway. They are usually in a dish.

I've been thinking more and more about making a separately fenced-in area of our already fenced-in yard anyway, because they get free run of the yard almost all day long. We have a dog who goes out in the morning for a couple of hours before I let them out of the coop, then he's inside until evening when they go in their coop again (I just let him go do his business in the front yard instead). My daughter can't be outside when the dog is outside, because he's 60lbs and can knock her over when he's running since she likes to stay close to him. So I'm thinking of doing a huge run with fencing on close to half of the yard, and putting bird netting over it. I don't want my kiddo to be afraid of the chickens, but I don't want her to not help with them either b/c then she will always be afraid. I just know that making a separate run won't be cheap.

I can't think of any other solutions.... can you?

 

[treehuggingjess]

Oh, and for the record: my chickens are ALL hens as far as I know. No roos. They are about 18 weeks old, so wouldn't I be able to tell by now if any of them are roos? I bought them sexed.

 

[n8ivetxn]

I imagine they think she has food.... my little ones will do that to me. I do have one adult hen (Ameracauna) that will come right up and look very carefully at my fingers, I think she knows the difference, but sometimes I think she might peck at them just to see if there's something there....

I think your strategy is good. Your little one will learn that the girls won't hurt her. It's sad that she's afraid, but I guess I would be too...

I sometimes wear a body lotion with real lavendar. It always draws the "wildlife" (bees, butterflies), they literally will not leave me alone if I'm outside ....Is there something like that involved?

 

[treehuggingjess]

I imagine they think she has food.... my little ones will do that to me. I do have one adult hen (Ameracauna) that will come right up and look very carefully at my fingers, I think she knows the difference, but sometimes I think she might peck at them just to see if there's something there....

I think your strategy is good. Your little one will learn that the girls won't hurt her. It's sad that she's afraid, but I guess I would be too...

I sometimes wear a body lotion with real lavendar. It always draws the "wildlife" (bees, butterflies), they literally will not leave me alone if I'm outside ....Is there something like that involved?

Nope. We don't wear anything scented.

 

[Danielle27]

My chickens peck me all the time. Those little brats have broken my skin before too. The only one that pecks lightly is my 16 week old barred rock. They are just being curious, but I wish curious didn't leave scabs. ugh!

 

[Danielle27]

I'll be paying close attention to this thread to see if anyone has any ideas on how to stop the pecking.

 

[lindsay297]

We had a similar situation with my twins. The girls would see me coming with food and try to get at my hands....so they did the same with the boys. Unfortunatly thee boys would raise their hands up (in fear) and so they would jump for their hands.

We have taught the boys to keep their hands at their sides when the girls are near. Flat against their legs. They will come up and check out their hands but not jump. We have also had the boys sit down when they get "surrounded". The girls seem to stop and try to figure out what they are doing. At first our boys were scared to do this and so we would sit with them. We found that after a while the girls werent quite so pushy.

Our girls were around 9 months old when we got and were from a farm....not raised by us. They caught on really fast. We also started taking out a special bucket with any treats in it. They still took the treats from our hands but, learnt within a few days that our hands were not important. What they wanted was the treat bucket. We still do this and wow, what a race when they see that bucket!!

hope this might help. Yours are a bit younger then ours were so might be quick and easy!!

 

[theoldchick]

It is always good to introduce a child to chickens who are behind a fence. If the child is timid, and the chickens are not timid, what you experienced is what will happen. The chickens go after the child. To the chickens she is either food, or a food source. On the other hand, an assertive child may charge the chickens and terrify them. So protecting the poultry with a fence is always a good idea.

Yes, build a run for the chickens to allow your child free range of the yard .Keep the chickens confined while she's outside. She needs to play! When she grows confident, you can give her the responsibility of giving them treats (tossed in the air away from her), and collecting eggs. Or she can collect the feathers for craft projects. Be sure to escort her when the chickens are out to keep her safe. While your daughter may never learn to love chickens, will learn to respect them for that they are-dinosaur descendants.

 

[treehuggingjess]

It is always good to introduce a child to chickens who are behind a fence. If the child is timid, and the chickens are not timid, what you experienced is what will happen. The chickens go after the child. To the chickens she is either food, or a food source. On the other hand, an assertive child may charge the chickens and terrify them. So protecting the poultry with a fence is always a good idea.

Yes, build a run for the chickens to allow your child free range of the yard .Keep the chickens confined while she's outside. She needs to play! When she grows confident, you can give her the responsibility of giving them treats (tossed in the air away from her), and collecting eggs. Or she can collect the feathers for craft projects. Be sure to escort her when the chickens are out to keep her safe. While your daughter may never learn to love chickens, will learn to respect them for that they are-dinosaur descendants.

She wasn't afraid of them when they were tiny chicks. We've raised them from a few days old. But she started to get scared of them when they got bigger than our cat (LOL) and started pecking at her occasionally (not hard enough to actually hurt her). I may have to convert our dog's old kennel to a run for them to be in until the afternoon when it's too hot for the kiddo to play outside anyway (we've had 100+ degree weather over the last couple of weeks - YUCK)!