how to occupy my bored chickens?

[tammyfarms]

Thanks for all of the great ideas! Until reading this, I have only thrown scratch or thrown out flakes of straw. They love to scratch around in straw and that will typically keep them occupied for days. It is fun to watch them the first few minutes play king of the mountain with the straw. I am definately going to try the gatorade bottle with grains and BOSS. BTW, thanks for the explaination, I did not know what BOSS was either....

 

[chickenkeeper12]

I've seen the seed blocks at the feed store in the past. Every time I think to myself I'd like to get me one of them! However, it just dawned on me recently that it may attract mice. Raising our feeder off the ground eliminated our previous mice problem. I'm afraid a seed block may be an invitation for them to come back. What do you all think?

I have a block for them during the day and at night I put it in my small shed for where I store the feed, grit, scratch, and treats.

 

[Nutcase]

Thanks for all of the great ideas! Until reading this, I have only thrown scratch or thrown out flakes of straw. They love to scratch around in straw and that will typically keep them occupied for days. It is fun to watch them the first few minutes play king of the mountain with the straw. I am definately going to try the gatorade bottle with grains and BOSS. BTW, thanks for the explaination, I did not know what BOSS was either....

I tried the bottle idea and yes it does keep them occupied!

 

[kandrews]

Put in some small pine branches my 2 silkies love to eat the needles (their favorite treat I have found) and the like to carry them around almost like a dog they are so silly!

 

[Nutcase]

Thanks guys this website rocks! Any more ideas would be appreciated

 

[mrsc1951]

Just rake up a pile of leaves for them to scratch around in. Mine see me with the rake and start jumping up and down. Also one of my Cochin's favorite places to perch is on an axe stuck in a tree stump. She gets out on the end of the handle.

 

[Jeanmonk]

Hi I'm new to this and thanks for your tip on my board girls. Can you tell me wot you are using on the floor of your run looks great .

 

[blackwpk]

It looks like sand, which is great for cleaning up the poo as well as keeping the smell down. I use sand/dirt in the run and pine shavings in the coop. They love digging around in it. I was using straw but got to be so messy and hard to deal with. I only have 4 girls so the shaving work better for me. I also use the shavings in the nest buckets.

 

[Korzak]

I did this, but the roost-boards were higher in the run than the door was to their henhouse...so they started roosting on the boards in the run, instead of going into the henhouse at night :/

So I lowered the boards to about 2' off the ground. I might try a higher one now, since the girls are more used to going in to the henhouse to sleep at night now.

Definitely going to try a swing or two!

 

[azygous]

Try this. Chickens love their own "furniture", especially if it's plush comfort. (Who knew?) All of my chickens love to lounge on these cushy feed sacks stuffed with straw, even the youngest. Sure, they get pooped on, but I just take them out from time to time and hose them off.