- May 6, 2014
- 3
- 0
- 7
hello all, my name is Sue, my husband, son, two dogs, a cat, a parrot and now 6 chicks all live NW of Chicago. We've never had chickens before, but we have neighbors who have them who have been helpful with hints.
The chicks came from Farm & Fleet, they've about 6 weeks old now. Three Black Australorps, two Golden Comets and one Buff Orpington. The buff is Buffy (what else), and my husband is completely taken with her charms (she is pretty sweet), one of the comets has cream feathers on her bottom half, so she is Fancy Pants (because she looks like she is wearing pantaloons), and she is large and in charge. The rest are not named, the intention was to not name them, but as you can see, that didn't last long. We built the Purina 4' x 4' coop, and I wish I'd found this place before we built it, as it is functional, but there are a few design flaws which will probably require a bit more work, like the clean out door, and the egg box. Plus, this seems like a very helpful site.
The girls have all been moved out to the yard over the weekend, and they love it outside. They've discovered all the tasty bugs, like june bugs (yummy!) and flies. Today, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees from the morning high of 65 into the 50s, and it was windy and wet and I got pretty worried that they would get chilled. However, they wanted nothing to do with going back into the coop, and my, um, coaxing them resulted in a tired me, and some pretty wary chickens. Picture in your head an out of shape middle aged woman trying to herd some unwilling chickens up a ramp into a warm coop, and, well, you probably know how this ended. I then tried some encouragement in the form of thawed out frozen corn, tasty gobs of corn dotted up the ramp to show them the way, and still, they decided that outside was where they wanted to be (of course, they ate the corn first). So, I went back inside and finished some work. My husband came home, and we went out to team work them into the coop. Three of them were already in, under the heat lamp getting warm, the other three were at the top of the ramp, cuddled together by the warm door. Husband reached up and just pushed them all in, and closed the door for the night, and wondered out loud "What was so hard about that?".
. OK, then.
So, is it too late to get them more used to us, and is there any way to train them to come when called? Will they eventually figure out roosting in the coop at night, can we do anything that would get them to do that, or will they just want to stay outside? I feel pretty good about their enclosure and what not, but I really don't want to tempt the myriad of things that like to eat chickens.
Anyway, hi again! I need to download my pictures to photobucket, will post when I do.
The chicks came from Farm & Fleet, they've about 6 weeks old now. Three Black Australorps, two Golden Comets and one Buff Orpington. The buff is Buffy (what else), and my husband is completely taken with her charms (she is pretty sweet), one of the comets has cream feathers on her bottom half, so she is Fancy Pants (because she looks like she is wearing pantaloons), and she is large and in charge. The rest are not named, the intention was to not name them, but as you can see, that didn't last long. We built the Purina 4' x 4' coop, and I wish I'd found this place before we built it, as it is functional, but there are a few design flaws which will probably require a bit more work, like the clean out door, and the egg box. Plus, this seems like a very helpful site.
The girls have all been moved out to the yard over the weekend, and they love it outside. They've discovered all the tasty bugs, like june bugs (yummy!) and flies. Today, the temperature dropped about 15 degrees from the morning high of 65 into the 50s, and it was windy and wet and I got pretty worried that they would get chilled. However, they wanted nothing to do with going back into the coop, and my, um, coaxing them resulted in a tired me, and some pretty wary chickens. Picture in your head an out of shape middle aged woman trying to herd some unwilling chickens up a ramp into a warm coop, and, well, you probably know how this ended. I then tried some encouragement in the form of thawed out frozen corn, tasty gobs of corn dotted up the ramp to show them the way, and still, they decided that outside was where they wanted to be (of course, they ate the corn first). So, I went back inside and finished some work. My husband came home, and we went out to team work them into the coop. Three of them were already in, under the heat lamp getting warm, the other three were at the top of the ramp, cuddled together by the warm door. Husband reached up and just pushed them all in, and closed the door for the night, and wondered out loud "What was so hard about that?".
So, is it too late to get them more used to us, and is there any way to train them to come when called? Will they eventually figure out roosting in the coop at night, can we do anything that would get them to do that, or will they just want to stay outside? I feel pretty good about their enclosure and what not, but I really don't want to tempt the myriad of things that like to eat chickens.
Anyway, hi again! I need to download my pictures to photobucket, will post when I do.
and Welcome To BYC! It sounds like they know where the coop is and how to get in it, but you can keep them locked in the coop for a few days so they get used to thinking of it as home if they try to sleep outside, usually they are pretty good in 3/4 days. Most chickens are pretty trainable using treats / food to get them to come back in to a run or coop. If they know scratch, that will usually work well as a bribe, if they don't, just toss some out for a few days, they will probably decide they like it pretty fast. just have a can that you shake and call them somehow, they will get used to the noise / your call meaning scratch is going to be available and will come running.
