Dumb chickens?

[goldeaglenest]

So my 13 chickens are about 14 weeks old now. I have a mix of chickens:
road island red
White leghorn
auracana
Barred Rock
Buff Orpington
Black Austrolorp
Cuckoo Maran
silver Wyandotte (I was supposed to get one of each type of Wyandotte and a few eastereggers but I ended up with five of the same...)

My question is about the wyandottes. They seem really dumb compared to the rest of the flock! When I let them out of their coop in the morning, everyone hurries out, except for the wyans. They go to the side of the coop and bash themselves into the hardware cloth that covers the side frantically trying to get to the the rest of the flock which is now outside. It will take them five minutes to figure out where the door is. Same thing when I herd them back in. The rest of the flock goes directly through their chicken door while at least some of the wyans are bashing themselves against the side of the coop. I have to herd them to the door and show them where it is every night!
Why do they do this? Are wyandottes known to be a little less bright as far as chickens go? I have picked them up and showed them where the door is, led them to it, bribed them with treats to it. Nothing sticks! Next day they are bashing themselves against the side of the coop and running around frantically trying to find the door to go either in or out! But what's weird is I see them going in and out all day...they do know where the door is then. Just not when I'm there to let them in and out. The wyans are also a nightmare to catch if they have escaped. If I'm going to have a problem with a chicken, it's a Wyandotte.
Anyone else have a breed of chicken that just doesn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer?

 

[azygous]

No, Wyandottes are not particularly stupid, if you can accurately use that word to describe chicken behavior. It is what it is, mainly being the way chicken brains are wired to have linear thought processes. Kind of the way some people think.

If a chicken wishes to get from point A to point B and there's a barrier in the way but they can see through it, their need to get beyond it supersedes their ability to recognize at the same time that they need to find a way to go around it. Kind of the way some people think.

Back when I got my first SLW chicks, I had a Brahma bully hen that would set herself up as an impenetrable barrier just inside of one of the two pop holes to the coop at roosting time, waiting to pounce on small chicks as they entered. The chicks eventually figured out that the alternate pop hole had no such impenetrable barrier, and they went in to roost.

Some individual chickens are a little faster than others at figuring out stuff, as well as groups of chicks, but through trial and error, they all manage to get there. Kind of the way some people are.

 

[MickeysChicks]

Yep! My silvers and my golds did it! That's why I'm not getting more! I have one silver left and she's going to freezer camp ASAP. I lost the others to their own stupidity. They wandered off during free range time and never came home, easy pickings for the predators hanging out in the woods!

 

[andreanar]

I had a hen we named Helen Keller! LOL. She was a Cuckoo Marans and would get lost if she went around a tree, a corner or a dirt pile, then scream bloody murder trying to find the flock. She was def short on brains. But dang, she was fun to watch!! And she laid the most beautiful dark chocolate eggs.

 

[azygous]

Yep! My silvers and my golds did it! That's why I'm not getting more! I have one silver left and she's going to freezer camp ASAP. I lost the others to their own stupidity. They wandered off during free range time and never came home, easy pickings for the predators hanging out in the woods!

Leaves me to ponder whether the chickens were stupid to wander off and get eaten or if the chicken keeper was stupid for letting them.

 

[goldeaglenest]

Leaves me to ponder whether the chickens were stupid to wander off and get eaten or if the chicken keeper was stupid for letting them.

Hmmm...wasn't trying to start anything personal! My main concern is that the only chickens that behave this way are the wyandottes. I find that strange that all five of them seem dumb and belligerent at times while none of my other hens do anything like it! Just got me to wondering if the wyans are known to be less endowed with grey matter. Either way, my chickens stay together st all costs. If one were to wonder off, I'm pretty sure they all would...that's why they "free range" within the confines of an electric fence that I move into new forage ground weekly! Otherwise I'm pretty retain they would choose to sleep outside of the coop piled on top of each other in a vastkybunprotected section of their field, rather than in their beautiful roostsnin their safe, secure coop...

 

[azygous]

Sorry. No insult was intended. Just being flippant for entertainment purposes.

 

[goldeaglenest]

Gotcha! My chickens love their coop too much. I have to convince them to go out and forage sometimes, but I do worry about those silly wyandottes. Some times I'm just watching them and I can't help but wonder if they've got a bag over their heads or something! I just can't believe it. but I guess it's that one track mind. One of my dogs blasted through my garden fence to get at a rabbit. He didn't even see the fence he was so focused on getting the rabbit. Hitting the fence surprised him just as much as the rabbit! If a dog can do this, I'm guessing it's easy for a chicken to get this way too!

 

[azygous]

Bears, too. I had a bear so focused on getting to my chickens in the run behind me, it almost ran me over. Good times.

 

[aart]

I have 2 runs separated by about 6-8',
accessed by 2 pop doors at opposite ends of 16' coop.
Birds frequently pace the fence of one run when wanting to go into the other.
Some 'get it' and go back thru coop, other just pace and fuss....SMH.