Hi from Southern California

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EggedOn

EggedOn

Hatching
8 Years
Jul 20, 2011
2
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7
I have 4 chickens, just got them from my niece about 2 months ago. Their friend was moving to the city and had to find homes for them. They are about a year old or so. I have a RIR, Dominique, Americauna and a mix of some sort. They all have different personalities and the pecking order is very noticeable. I have not tried to pick them up. 3 will come close to me, but scurry away if I reach out for them. I would like to try to tame them but don't know how exactly. I have trained dogs and horses, but I have had no bird experiences! I am enjoying this forum and am learning a lot. They came to me pretty dishelved and one nearly bald from their rooster picking on her. They have settled in nicely and their feathers are coming back in. I bought a coop and chainlink enclosure. When I am home, I turn them out on about 1/2 acre fenced. I got them for myself and my elderly mother to enjoy. I was going to wait for my retirement to do this, but I think we put off things too much sometimes.
My vegetable garden is now producing and, with the eggs too, we feel downright self sufficient! Well, partially at least!
Thanks for reading,
R.
 
I am new to back yard chickens myself but I may be able to help you with the taming of the chickens. My wife and I buy a feed type called rooster booster here in tennessee but in some places it is called game fowl feed. It has sun flower seeds, whole corn, and a lot of other good ingredients in it. We give this to our chickens as a treat. The first few days we take a scoop and pour a handful into their feeder and back away. They are curious of the noise and usually come to investigate. After a few days they associate the noise with that food and come running. We then try only tapping the feeder very lightly and when they come over we let them eat out of the feed scoop for a few days. Our next step after a few days of that is to put some food in our hand and keep it very close to the scoop which kind of fools them into thinking your hand is the scoop. After they start eating from our hand we slowly move the scoop away until just our hand is out there. Usually after a few days of this they will start coming to us and eating out of our hand without the scoop. There are probably Alot of easier quicker ways of doing it than the way I described but we have been very successful with all of our hens and all but one of our roosters( he was so mean the boogy man probably looked under his bed at night for this rooster). Hope this helps.
 
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Wow, what a nice group! Thanks for the advice and welcomes. I will find some food they can't resist, grab a chair and see if they will eat out of my hand as you suggested Mailman!
 

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