How can I encourage my chickens to be more cuddly?

[SLA]

one of the least cuddly chicks started jumping into our
laps as we sat in the run. We slowly added gentle petting which she clearly enjoys. She doesn’t, though, like if we try to pick her up. It has to be on her terms.

 

[West Bend]

I must have some pretty friendly chickens. I can't bend down without 1 of them jumping on my back. I need to stand up very slowly, they walk up to sit on my shoulder instead of flying down. Our Luna likes to take naps on my lap & likes to have her chin scratched. I'll have to look for a picture or 2. I did spend a lot of time bonding with them. Keep at it & good luck.

 

[PippinTheChicken]

I have been training my skittish birds to jump on my legs and arms using a nice leaf of lettuce every day... Sometimes when I forget to go out, the birds start screaming until I give them food... Now they tolerate me a bit more

 

[PippinTheChicken]

But now I am raising chicks, one of the babies is so cuddly and sweet; jumping on my arm, napping on me... I hope she will stay sweet to adulthood!

 

[maceleneo]

this is my first year raising chicken, but I raised my five marans since they were baby chicks, spent a lot of time with them and some of them are really friendly. two of them jump on my lap and sleep there when I work at the computer in the garden. other are more shy and definitely don't like being handled, but they still like coming near when I'm in the garden and I'm not sure that they are just waiting for food. they are obviously interested in food, but they seem to like hanging around even when they know they won't receive anything, for example taking naps around the table where I work even if they have plenty of space where they could go (and I never feed them when I work: actually I tried to keep them out of that area, so I never encouraged them to get there, but it didn't work!).
I guess this was possible because as I said I spent a lot of time bonding with them, I get them when they were chicks and I think breed is definitely a factor (as far as I know, marans aren't particularly friendly, but they arent particularly shy).
I have three more chickens (two araucana and an olive egger) I get when they were around 4 months old and they don't do that, but I never put great effort in bonding with them.
I think you can work on building trust with your chickens and they might get to enjoy staying near you, but as they say, they are prey animals and they don't usually enjoy being touched or stroked.

 

[FLXCHIX]

I have six chickens. One tolerates a bit of a pet, she will squat and let you stroke her, my smallest RIR aka lil’ red, I swear loves being petted. She walks up to us all the time and squats or stands still and will let you pick her up. lil’ red gets held daily and she never tires of it. The other four think ya got a pot of boiling water waiting for them!