Pavlovian Response

[RawEggEater]

I just finished reading the "Chickens won't go in coop at night" thread and was wondering if it would be possible to scatter food at the door of the coop while blowing a whistle or ringing a bell to train your girls to come to the coop.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

I just finished reading the "Chickens won't go in coop at night" thread and was wondering if it would be possible to scatter food at the door of the coop while blowing a whistle or ringing a bell to train your girls to come to the coop.

You can absolutely train them to come when called. I yell "Chick-chick CHICKENS" and they come flying. I am throwing treats as I call. It's a great party trick in addition to a good training tool.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You can train them to come to you using food. A common way is to put "treats" in a certain bucket and shake the bucket as you toss them treats. They soon learn to come running when they see or hear that bucket. Or use a certain call as mentioned above. Just be consistent and you can train them to come, which can come in really handy a lot of times, not just at bedtime.

The way I train chickens to sleep in a certain coop is to toss them in after dark each night until they learn to go in on their own. Chickens naturally know to go to bed when it gets dark. The exact time they do that will vary as days get longer or shorter, but cloud cover can also affect that time. Trying to time it so you can train them to go to bed sounds too challenging for me to get the timing right unless you lure them in before bedtime and lock them in there.

 

[wf1992]

I guess I've been lucky, but I've found teaching chickens to go in at dark is much like litter training a cat. Step 1: Show them where it is. Step 2: Done. (Although in deference to their little pea-brains, I don't let new birds free-range for a while, until I'm sure they'll remember the where.) On rare occasions that the wind has blown the door to the run closed and they can't get in, I'll find them roosted on and around the coop/run.

As to training them with treats, absolutely! I shut them in their enclosed run at the end of the day, and they can roost at their leisure. They hear me calling on my way to the coop and they all come, running into their yard ahead of me in anticipation of the scratch I'll throw in.

And the old girls tell the new girls, so I don't even have to do the training anymore.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

I guess I've been lucky, but I've found teaching chickens to go in at dark is much like litter training a cat. Step 1: Show them where it is. Step 2: Done. (Although in deference to their little pea-brains, I don't let new birds free-range for a while, until I'm sure they'll remember the where.) On rare occasions that the wind has blown the door to the run closed and they can't get in, I'll find them roosted on and around the coop/run.

As to training them with treats, absolutely! I shut them in their enclosed run at the end of the day, and they can roost at their leisure. They hear me calling on my way to the coop and they all come, running into their yard ahead of me in anticipation of the scratch I'll throw in.

And the old girls tell the new girls, so I don't even have to do the training anymore.

Yes. To all of this!!!

I have observed new pullets/chicks take a little time to figure things out such as where to lay and an appropriate bed time, but compared to my first batch of pullets which had no guidance from older birds, new additions learn from the established flock and adjust much faster.

 

[PDXJULES]

I just finished reading the "Chickens won't go in coop at night" thread and was wondering if it would be possible to scatter food at the door of the coop while blowing a whistle or ringing a bell to train your girls to come to the coop.

When i sing in the Henhouse they cannot resist coming inside.