Crazy/funny things your birds have done today or any time.

[BirdbyGavin1103]

So this is my day so far:

I watched probably one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time this morning, and am kicking myself for not having a camera. At the far end of the yard a doe and fawn were crossing. My "alpha" rooster, a BCM named Jäger, runs nearly all the way down to them. The doe snorted but they stood still, then the fawn creeps up to him and sniffs him. Jäger crows at it, and it jumped so high you'd think he bit it. I started laughing and both deer took off with Jäger chasing them to the edge of the yard. He crows at them again, then comes back to his favorite group of girls all puffed up, as if to say "Yep, I showed them who's boss."

A little earlier one of my ducks, decided one of the cats' tails needed grooming, or maybe it looked yummy, and now the cat has a bald spot on her tail.

The one group of chickens decided a wild rabbit was getting too close, and proceeded to chase it all over the yard for about 5 minutes. Until they got too close to where it apparently dens, then it began to chase them.

And just a few minutes ago Jäger decided to sneak into the house as I was taking food out for the cats and dogs, found his way into my son's room and decided his bed would make an excellent crowing stand. So I know have a very crabby 7 yr old boy.

All of this before 0800.

So what has your flock been upto? Any kind of stories are welcome.

 

[Shellz]

Awesome stories! Have similar one to your deer, but it was my dog involved. Yours was better by far! That would've been a winner on any video show, I'm sure!
My chickens & younger 7 week olds can be seen now & then, chasing off robins. I have 2-11 week old roos too that just had an encounter with a cottontail a few days ago. All they did was stare at it for a bit & then back to eating. Wish I had the kind of excitement you had this morning! Lol!

 

[BirdbyGavin1103]

It's like this most days with our flock. Although some days are by far more, umm, "interesting" than others lol.

 

[Shellz]

My 7 week old Easter Egger just crowed! Awww, I just love those first few strangled crows! Yeah, I know what you mean. Some moments are just stellar!

 

[chooks4life]

I had a hen who would stare down a car and do that head-down chicken-charge at it if it was moving toward her. They lower their heads like a rooster staring down another point-blank with intent, usually spread their wing slightly, and do a really 'lumpy' run --- not smooth, it's got a very, very exaggerated step motion to it, like they lift their legs high at the hip as the step. Looks like what a human does when they raise thei shoulders as high as they can and lower them and raise them again in quick succession, lol! She was a nice girl just weird about cars coming up the driveway. Three guesses how she died.

I also used to watch the chooks, especially the half-grown ones, do some sort of dodgy dance. It appeared to be a game which had some relation to pretending to escape a predator, most likely an airborne attacker like a hawk. They also put their heads down on the level with their bodies and run, doing a random swervy dodging and weaving movement with their wings and path. If one started a few others would join in. It's very graceful and quite lovely to watch; they speed up and down and up again during the dance run game and every time they stick one wing out they move their heads and bodies in the opposite direction, so for example right wing extended is followed by the chicken swerving with head then body to the left. It always starts out in the open and ends up under a tree, where they get all watchful for a moment before getting back to normal chicken business, hence my assumption it's a bird-of-prey avoidance practice, since that would in fact also slow them down for a land predator to catch.

Another funny one... When we first got chooks, our cat was great with them, but they wanted her food. So when we fed her (outside as she is a terrible and disrespectful housemate despite being trained from infancy) the chooks would come barreling down the concrete path, making enormous stomps not even a human can replicate (we tried) and they would skid to a stop (we also tried to skid on the concrete, no luck) and put their faces within an inch of hers, and just glare out of one eye at her. She would give them the stink eye and retreat, and they would the eat her food.

Heaps more stories but I'm working on smaller posts, lol, I really do talk too much.

 

[redneck farmer]

A fox ran up to my birds today but I scared it off an the hole time my birds did not even see it an they looked at me like "what are you freaking out about?"

 

[Shellz]

Great stuff! Yeah, chooks4life, my young birds do that pred avoidance stuff too! It's fun to watch, especially with a large flock!

Hey redneck! Yikes, a fox! Whoa, too close! Good thing you were there!

 

[RedDrgn]

Oh! My flock hasn't been out free ranging when any of our resident deer (a.k.a. overpopulated destroyers of all things green) have actually been on our property. I know our roo will sound the alarm and stand and stare at any deer he spots on adjacent properties, but he hasn't tried to get near any yet. I'd be delighted if he did, though! The sneaking inside was pretty funny as well. XD

The only story I've got at the moment is of one of the chicks we just got yesterday, a dominique with a propensity for standing on the feeder to eat and running at high speed in any random direction at any time....and often falling all over herself during any of these acts. She rights herself pretty fast, though! Looks around to make sure there are no witnesses and then goes back about her business. ...and her name is now Tanglefoot.

 

[Gramma5]

Mine don't free range but it's funny to watch Polly ride the handle of the scooper when I'm cleaning out the coop/run. She rides the handle and checks out what I'm scooping out. Just in case I have something other than poop in there I guess......

They are fun to watch.

 

[graciesmum]

My lead hen nugget scared the life out of me the other day, I was stood by the chicken gate leaning on it talking to my daughter, all of a sudden nugget jumped up on the fence stole a grape from the box and ran off, she had never done this before, so it was a bit of a shock to me lol, my 2 year old daughter told her off, told her she was a naughty chicken lol