My Chickens have Terrible Manners!

[PatS]

I must be a bad Mom! When I take treats to my chickens they all but attack me! They have food available 24/7, so it isn't like they're starving. When I walk in their run (a few times a day) they crowd around me. Some of the roos JUMP up to try to grab whatever I'm carrying. I sit to give them their treat and they peck at my hands so hard they could almost draw blood. Then, when they're done, they peck at my clothes.

What am I doing wrong? They are 7 week-old BOs.

 

[wombat]

They've probably trained you to hurry up and feed them when they act like this!

Mine peck at my wife when she feeds them too. When I feed them peanuts, if they snatch at them I say "NO!" and then I make them all wait. They've learned that if they don't all stand around calmly and wait their turn, nobody gets anything!

One roo was so bad for a while that I had to pin him to the ground and hold him there a few times until he learned who ran the run. It was kinda funny, I held him down, he howled and screamed, and a few of the others darted in and took a few cheap shots at him while he was helpless. Sneaky creatures! He seems to have calmed down quite a bit since.

 

[cochinbantam-lover]

 

[farmin'chick]

Hmmm. Well, I watch a lot of Dog Whisperer about pack behavior, etc., and so I applied it to chickens -- when my young roos (100 for meat birds!) started pecking me mean, I would take my index finger, curve it, and soundly PECK them back on the back between their shoulders -- Pecking order seems to be you peck harder the ones who don't peck you back. By pecking back, they decided I was higher in pecking order than they were, so the pecking stopped....At least, I guess that's why it stopped!!!

 

[JakRat]

I give mine a tap on the beak or take the food back and say no! I dont think they understand though, but they are getting better and calmer. I have girls though, no roosters. I try to pet mine while giving them a treat too so that hopefully they know that if I pet them they are being good and to hopefully get them used to me handling them. Then again I think age might have something to do with it too. Mine seem to be in the rebelious teenager stage so who knows!

 

[SunnyChic]

I have some little roos who started doing that too, and I just gently grab some of their chest feathers and hold them. They holler & scream (like wombat posted), but I don't let go right away (several seconds). That seems to do the trick Sometimes I pick them up and hold them until they calm down.