How To Scare The Be-Jesus Out of Your Chickens!

[Baymule]

My neighbor had a huge pile of sawdust under his table saw and I commented it would make good compost for a garden. He offered me all I wanted, so I got 2 black plastic garbage bags full. I have read about the deep litter method and it sounded like a easy way to make compost. Our coop has a dirt floor and the girls do love their dirt.

I opened the door to the coop, and the black bag and I walked in........pandemonium!!!

They took one look at the huge squatty monster and tired to fly through the tiny holes in the hardware cloth. Bok-Bok-BA-GAWK!! They screeched, crowded in the corner, climbing all over each other in their haste to flee from the black monster bag, all the while looking fearfully at it. It WAS STILL THERE!!

They flew and hopped up their steps to their roost. A couple of them couldn't wait on the slow-pokes in front of them and hysteria won, sending them flying over the heads of the hopping scaredy-chickens.

The girls packed the top rail of their roost, clucking and BA-GAWKing. I sent them into further hysterics by pouring a pile of EVIL tan colored stuff on the floor of THEIR COOP!! What a TERRIBLE chicken momma!!

I picked a red sex link off the roost and calmed her a little, then put her feet in the sawdust. According to the chicken, I had just dipped her feet in sulphuric acid and she let the whole world know about it--LOUDLY! She took off when I let go. Undaunted, or maybe to spread the fun around, I picked a black sex link and did the same thing to her. Her feet took off running when they hit the pile of chicken eating sawdust and she kicked up a cloud.

I picked another one off the roost, then for some unexplicable reason the other five flew down and they went back to their "Queen of the Corner" contest. I spread a couple of small piles in the coop, leaving them plenty of exposed dirt, and the chickens were convinced their piece of real estate just became a toxic waste dump.

It was late, almost their bedtime, so I left off tormenting the poor hens and joined the Christmas Parade on the Kawasaki/Yamaha float with my husband-he's the general manager. This morning we left early and got back after dark. I got the flashlight to check the girls and gather eggs. Yeah, you'd think after the scare I gave them, they would close up the poot chute and there would be no eggs--but they forgave me---eggs!! I flashed the light around and there were no piles of sawdust, it was all churned into the dirt. It looks like I'll get the girls to do my composting after all........

 

[jeslewmazer]

Silly chickens.

 

[gryeyes]

I loved your tale! It is SO spot on about chickens! I, unfortunately, added a new waterer to the coop and apparently I didn't know that plastic item exactly two-thirds the size of its nearly duplicate waterer was REALLY a squatty, chicken-killing robot masquerading as a smaller waterer.

I use the DLM and I don't even spread out the new bales of shavings when I add them, any more. I just slice the plastic covering off, removing it totally from the contents. Just leave the big hump of shavings right there. By the next morning, it's a lower hump covering more of the coop floor. Within two days, that huge bale of shavings is mixed in with the existing litter, and it was all done by the chickens. Plus, they had fun scratching in it!

 

[drumstick diva]

I think they were trying to dig down to China and safety - the sawfust got buried unintentionally. They were just glad it disappeared and went back to usual chicken stuff like laying eggs.

 

[Yvonne37894]

OMG!!!!! I laughed so hard I have tears running down my face.

 

[kidd42]

That's funny!
We give our chickens watermelon in the heat of the summer and they love it, they will climb all over each other to get at it. If it is sliced up, so I found out.
A coworker had bought a watermelon from a woman selling them outside the gate at the plant last summer. He put it in the old fridge in the maint office and left it there for a few days. Well, the entire melon froze solid. He was going to throw it out, so I asked if I could have it for the girls. It was still frozen solid when I got it home, and tried to bust it open on a rock, but it wouldn't even crack. So I rolled the whole, uncut melon into the run for the girls so they could have it when it thawed. You would have thought that I let a round green wildcat go in the run. I got the same reaction out of them as you did with the sawdust. They would not go near it until I was able to cut it open and they could see that it was a harmless watermelon. They are entertaining!

 

[1muttsfan]

I can just imagine the scene.

Baymule, sawdust is not the best thing to use inside a coop, as it is often too dusty and can lead to respiratory problems. I think you will find most people use shavings and not sawdust for that reason.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Too funny!!

Mine freaked out the other day when I brought a large paper yard debri bag into the run to dump out fallen leaves. The leaves, they love. The bag? Well, you know the response!

 

[9Catsz]

hahaha....Mine had the same reaction as yours did when I placed a carnivorous bale of chicken-eating straw into their coop.

 

[Baymule]

Quote:
I wondered about that. If it gets mixed in with the dirt, will it still cause problems? What about spraying it down with water? I figure on scooping out the coop in a few months and refilling it with sand, then more sawdust, if this works.