How to get your chicks to love you

[IggiMom]

I am so glad you started this thread, because I was wondering the same thing. Heck, mine were born in an incubator, so I am their MOM, and I talked to them and clucked at them while they were still eggs!

So I don't expect them to run away, but they do!

Mine you, they are only--what--maybe a week old so I still have time and so now I am going to start picking them up.

In the past, the only ones I had that would fly and sit on my shoulders were my Black Tailed Japanese. They would.

 

[JennsPeeps]

Lisa - I wanted to let you & many others know that pullets get friendlier once they hit sexual maturity. Once they start squatting, they're so easy go catch & pick up.

That said, we've really noticed differences between breeds in our flock. Our first brood had a RIR, BSL, and BR. We handled them equally and found that the RIR wound up being skittish. Granted, we're basing that on the experience of 1 chicken of that breed. She stopped hopping into my lap last fall, even though her flock mates were always eager to sit on & talk at me. The BSL and BR (R.I.P. Dumpling) followed us everywhere, talk to us constantly, and hop up whenever given the opportunity.

Walking Wolf's advice on snuggling the babies is right on.

For our 2nd brood, which consisted of a BA & a BO, we shuggled them nightly. Those 2 pullets are now 8 weeks old and while they're going through a stage right now of being a bit fearful, they are very friendly and nice young birds.

Now we're on our 3rd brood, a batch of 5 2-week-old chicks. We're snuggling them nightly in pairs. Again, we notice that the dual-purpose breeds are friendlier - BA, BR, Cochin - than the Polish, but they're funny & quirky in their own right.

SNUGGLE INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Put on a cardigan sweater or a robe.
2. Grab a towel/rag and a young chick or two (they like to be in pairs).
3. Put the towel under your robe/sweater.
4. Stuff said chick between the towel and your robe/sweater. It will fall asleep. You might, too.
5. Talk to the chick and pet it frequently until it gets restless, then return it to the brooder so it can eat/drink. I find that chicks can last up to 2 hours if they're sleeping soundly.

 

[bigdogmom130]

My chicks are 3 weeks old and I believe that they know who I am. I hold them (when they let me) and I talk to them as soon as I come into the room. I don't want to scare them since they can only see out of the top of the brooder right now. They do know that when I put my hand in there, I usually have some rolled oats for them and they go nuts! I took advice from everyone on here and just held them, played with them, and love them. They are all so different, but they seem to know who cares for them

 

[Isaacman]

Quote:
So you put the chicks between the robe and your body? or sweater and body. how long should i do this? cause i can sit there all day if need be

 

[Katy_didnot]

Didn't read all the posts, so this may be repeating, but I've had extremely good luck with my (first) babies. They are just 4 weeks today. Everytime I open the brooder they all fly out and onto me if I'm sitting down. I really think that the reason is simply that I have them in a very large dog kennel and I don't approach them from above, but from closer to their eye level. They still don't like for me to reach over them. I also feed them treats from my hands.
I've noticed that when I take them outside for a little bit they run into the brooder when a crow or a plane flies over.
Hope this helps!

Oh, I have 2 BO's and 3 RIR's.

 

[chickenlittlesmomma]

What a great thread!

My babies are 2 weeks old now and I really do try to handle them as much as possible. They are all New Hampshire Reds and there are 31 of them so its hard to handle them all....they pretty much all look the same lol. They are going through the RUN RUN RUN stage when I walk in the room with the brooder but I am sure they will get over that....I hope lol They are so stinkin cute. They are not sexed at all....can anyone tell me about how old they need to be to start telling the difference..hens and roos? /

 

[cmjust0]

Is it wrong that I kinda like that my chickens seems to be absolutely terrified in my presence and want nothing to do with me, whatsoever?

I mean, I don't like for them to be afraid...but I do sorta appreciate that when I put my hand down in the brooder to pick up their feeder, they all scatter. Makes it easier to work around them.

I guess I say that because our goats -- as much as I love'em -- are constantly underfoot when you're trying to work around them. There's nothing quite so frustrating as trying to do something like drive nails when there's a goat three inches away, alternately stealing your hat and sniffing the claw end of the hammer to see what's up.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
To each his own! I kinda like the friendliness, too, but I also wonder if your chickens aren't a little safer from predators, being this wary?

I had a goat once... much too pushy for me....

 

[walkswithdog]

Being wary of you is not being wary of predators in the long run. That's learned from bad results in general. Socialization to you has little effect on that.

What you will have, if you let them stay flighty is an amazingly difficult group to catch should you need to for an injury or illness and a bird that will be MORE stressed when injured or ill from having to be "captured" and possibly "locked up" by you. Stress makes everything harder to recover from.

So easy, as in not underfoot, admittedly has it's attraction, I have eight dogs... I know. But wow there is no fun in the world like trying to catch a freaked out chicken.

There are people with panicked, freaked out goats, ask them how much fun it is to milk or halter, or trim hooves, or trailer.

A background in being calm when handled benefits the handler far more often than the handled. Makes survival when injured more likely and simpler. Makes treatment easier.

Most of my current flock will either jump in my lap like pets or allow themselves to be picked up and cuddled briefly without much fuss. It's just easier that way.

 

[JennsPeeps]

My chickens recognize who is & isn't part of the household. They'll readily squat for DBF and me but nobody else. They won't squat for us when we have company, either.

So you put the chicks between the robe and your body? or sweater and body. how long should i do this? cause i can sit there all day if need be

I put them on the towel so that I don't get pooped on. They're under the cover of the robe. This works best with very young chicks: 0-2 weeks old. As they get older, they're happy just sitting on your lap. They'll let you know when they're done by being restless and making noise. When they're content they'll sleep, be quiet, or just trill.

Here's a pic of the first time we got the idea to do this: