I have a question for all of you experienced chicken people out there. I have a flock of 10 RIR hens and 1 RIR roo. They spend part of there day in pen and part in the yard. They are always happy to see me, and I usually will bring them some kind of treat (mostly leftovers) One day when I went out to feed them I noticed one keep pecking at my feet. I though maybe it was because I had polish on my toes. She will also get your finger if you stick it through the wire, my son found this out the hard way. Today I went to let them out and she pecked me hard on the foot. Instead of following the other chickens outside she choose to come over to me and peck me. I think it might be the same chicken every time. Kinda hard to tell. Is she being mean or is this normal chicken behavior. Any advice would be welcome. Thanks
My advice would be to pick her up, and walk around with her for about 10 minutes a day...let her know YOU are the boss, not her!
My mixed flock of adults and juveniles know I bring out food in bucket. They come to me for food under two conditions, first when I carry food bucket and second when I call names indicating meal worms. Even hens brooding eggs will come for meal worms. They generally have little interest when I carry water bucket. My birds do not have feed sitting in front of them at all times as I expect them to forage for most of their board. Nevertheless they appear to realize I am the feed provider and some seem inclined to press my buttons by pecking to get me to load up feed bucket. Ninety percent of time they see me food is not involved but still enough they may think it is worth odds to get me provide food. The interact only with me in this regard.
We hand feed ours. When they were babies they had a hard time accepting that they couldnt eat our hands too. They thought it was like pizza and that they should eat the whole thing, topping and all. Eventually they got over it and are now very gentle picking up their seeds. We even let small children who come over feed them now.
