I had to keep everyone locked in an outdoor pen for a few weeks to home-in some new birds. The pen is about 60' diameter & encloses the ducks' pond as well. I've been leaving the gate open for weeks & for some reason even the old birds weren't venturing very far out (they have 7 acres they can roam on). I've been trying to lure them with their kitchen scraps & scratch grain with little success. This afternoon, I come home from work and not a hen is to be found. I search all over, the whole time remembering that my rottie was (very uncharacteristically) barking his head off for a good bit last night while the ducks were also making a racket. I checked at the time, but everything seemed normal.
30 minutes of searching, becoming absolutely convinced something ate my birds & I finally find them all peacefully sleeping under an unused building on the opposite side of the property.
Once I woke them up, they cheerfully went back to foraging, eventually ending up back at their normal area to investigate the scraps I'd given the ducks. Best I can figure out, my original sebright hen decided she'd had enough of the staying close to the feeder business and took off (she's quite adventurous & her son even more so), and the rest of the chickens decided to follow.
Dang birds!!
After that much stress on my part, the feed consumption better go down this week!
30 minutes of searching, becoming absolutely convinced something ate my birds & I finally find them all peacefully sleeping under an unused building on the opposite side of the property.
Dang birds!!
