My girls are NOT happy with me

[scooter147]

My hens free ranging came to an end until after the first frost this coming fall. The perinnials are starting to pop up through the ground and I have started mulching the flower beds and such so the scratching machines are now confined to their coop and run.
When they see me coming they go running into the coop expecting me to prop open the human door and let them free and then when I walk back towards the house they start squawking at me. They seem to be screaming "wait you forgot to let us OUT"

 

[FaereChicken]

Oh, yeah! Same thing at our house.

 

[Echobabe]

We had our 1st hawk attack last Friday--and now my girls are locked up until someone is home in the afternoon. They are VERY unhappy with me, too! But its better than coming home to a ripped open dead bird!

 

[tellynpeep]

Oh... Since we're still under a couple of feet of snow here, you'll not get much sympathy from me !
But when my garden gets going in a couple of months, I'll share your frustration.

 

[chicksgalore]

We've been trying the last few days to keep the kids in the fence as the garden will hopefully soon contain some pea seeds. We have them in a temporary snow fence on the other half of the garden right now and it's not working out real well. Their wings are clipped so I'm pretty sure they're not flying out but I haven't really discovered how they're managing it--maybe they're figured out how to just push under the fence since there are only a handful that escape although it seems to be more each day.

 

[scooter147]

Chicksgalore,
I bet ya $20 that they are walking up that snow fence to get out.
I had a couple that would walk and flap their clipped wings and "scale" a 6 foot high woven wire fence to get out. I finally put deer netting over their run. Now I don' t have to worry about them getting out, clipping wings (which I don't like to do, I don't like how it looks) or hawk attacks.

 

[chicksgalore]

Interesting. I've been trying to catch them and see but they're so sneaky. I watched some of the culprits this morning walk around and around the edge but I finally turned away and next time I looked, they were out! Yesterday, I had one put herself out, back in and then back out again. I'd love to catch them and see how they're doing it!