"I'm not gonna try it, YOU try it"

[AKsmama]

Anybody ever hear that old Life cereal commercial in your head when you offer your chicks something new? I put a plate of chopped boiled egg in the brooder a few minutes ago, their first time having it, and I swear if they could talk that's what they would have been saying to one another. It didn't take long for the "He likes it! Hey Mikey!" to follow

They are suspicious little critters. It's funny though- when they were in their "playpen" outside yesterday and I gave then a huge grasshopper, it didn't take 2 milliseconds for them to snatch it and run, and as far as I know, they had never had one of those before either. Funny little weirdos!

 

[33yardbirds]

When they were just days old they would jump on any lady bug that fell into the brooder, now at over 4 months old they have to sneak up on a cut up watermelon.

 

[chicmom]

They are so much fun to watch! I had some silkies that were deathly afraid of EVERYTHING! So hilarious! I put a little pile of cut grass into their brooder and I'm sure if they could talk they would say something like this:

"OMG, OMG WHAT IS IT?! IT'S HORRIBLE.....HOOOOOORRIBLE! DON'T LOOK AT IT.....DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT.......GET OVER HERE IN THE CORNER AND FACE THE WALL! MAYBE IT'LL GO AWAY..........

 

[WriterofWords]

Isn't that just like humans? As children we trust and believe and as we age we get suspicious and trust none.

 

[gritsar]

I had a hen not doing well in the heat yesterday so I tried to offer her and the others some ice water. They were sorta used to the container - it's the one I normally put their oyster shell in, but not the things (ice cubes) floating in it. They wouldn't go for it.
Next I tried strawberry sherbert. Same deal. Wanted it badly, but were afraid at the same time.
I finally put the sherbert in a bowl that they are used to. They gobbled it up.
Moral of the story. They don't get any less suspicious as they get older.

 

[Downshifting]

I gave my girls some blueberries the other day. The first time I just scattered them on the ground inside their pen and they gobbled them up, no hesitation. The second time I put them inside a little bowl and you would have thought I'd put an alien in there with them. A couple of minutes of eyeballing the bowl and cautiously approaching...but not TOO close, turned into charging by the bowl to make sure it didn't reach out and grab one of them as they ran by, and then somebody finally got brave enough to grab a blueberry on the way by and it was a free-for-all after that!