Escapee hen - any advice appreciated!

[bantambonanza]

Pele: Well we do actually live on a farming estate! It's just that we rent from the landowner and thus can't take over large portions of the estate for the chickens. There are several hundred dopey pheasants running loose around the estate which survive predation well, so I think she would stand a chance if she got out again.

Mrsfoote: We got her at point-of-lay just last week. She seems a bit happier these days with the other hens, things are beginning to settle down now that they're getting used to being with us. She's often wandering about with another hen, our Scots Grey, Elsie, who's also pretty low in the pecking order so I think she's making friends!

WoodlandWoman: Our coop isn't an Omlet one, only the netting - we can't afford Eglus! It's just a wooden coop, big enough for 8 regular sized hens and we have 8 bantams. I plan to do some modifications on it anyways because they didn't make the perches higher than the nest box, so all the girls just crowd in there at night and poo it up. It's actually really interesting because once Lily's inside the coop at night she actually is the only hen to snuggle down with the Silkie cockerels - who she runs away from during the day! I think you're right about things needing some more time for everyone to settle in, or at least I hope so!

Thanks everyone, since we had success with her staying in tonight and going in the coop voluntarily we'll just take it day by day - escape by escape!

 

[bantambonanza]

Quote:
That's our plan for if she gets out again. We just didn't have a chance to get netting before, and now that she's staying in again we'll see how it goes! Thanks, though, I think that'll be ideal if she won't stay in any other way.

 

[spiritdance]

This behavior usually results from the chicken trying to escape a bully. Can you put a game cam in the coop to determine who the instigator is? Once you identify the culprit, put THAT bird in a cage in the coop for a few days. It will upset the pecking order and perhaps give your timid girl a chance to climb the social ladder a bit. Of course, this is dependent upon the coop's size ... if it's too small, you will just end up with a new pecking order with a new bully. I know "conventional wisdom" says 4 square feet of coop and 10 square feet of run, but I find that to be too small for good flock dynamics. I prefer to give large birds at least 6 square feet of coop and 25 square feet of run space if you're not free ranging, with a choice of roosts in the coop. They get along much better this way, and subordinate birds have room to escape potential tormentors.

 

[bantambonanza]

Well Lily got out again this afternoon, and I've worked out what she's up to - she's getting out to lay her eggs in our shed! I found one on top of the bin bag of dirty shavings this morning that must have been there since that night she got out. And then today she was making her egg song squawking and fussing and as soon as I went inside she must have jumped fence again, because only about five minutes later I went out again and she was sat in exactly the same place I found her egg!

So I have a new tactic I'm hoping will work: I'll listen out for her egg song, and when I hear it I'll lock her inside the coop until she's laid. I'll let her out afterward and watch to see if she tries after that, but I have a feeling that's what motivates her to leave. So for the next week or so I'll try to make sure that she's locked in the coop when she's about to lay and at risk for escaping and hopefully it will soon become habit that the coop and nestbox are the place to lay her eggs!

At this point it doesn't look like she's actually being bullied, I think she's just a free spirit who needs a bit of training to understand what her boundaries are. If what I'm attempting doesn't work we've been in touch with the woman who sold her to us and she'll take her back and give us a new hen with less proclivity for escape. But I really like this spunky wee girl, so I'm hoping this works and we can keep her!