Poll on flock toys — please answer if possible!

[The Welch Chickens]

An egg bound hen needs epsom salt baths imo. Afterwards a nice quite place to rest. Another epsom salt in 4hours.... I would not use a mirror in an egg bound hen. I was thinking more like a medical emergency that requires your immediate action. When Patient ripped her comb off, i had to rush her inside, clean the wound, and keep her in as clean an environment as possible. Her little setup included a mirror. I kept her inside for 9 days while that wound healed and she always gravitated to that mirror and bed. Its safe to say that a mirror can be a help in certain situations.

Of course! Treat her first and then let her rest.

I didn’t see these, sorry.
Yes, she was treated accordingly and is all healed up and back with the flock

 

[fluffycrow]

Giving a chicken parrot toys, or mirrors, and other "fun" toys is sort of like giving your dog a cat scratching post. Most will only acknowledge its existence way too infrequently.

Instead of wasting money on toys that don't enrich a chicken's life too much, go for some more foraging options, or offer new foods to try (sprouts, scratch, etc).

Even chicks, the vast majority of which would be curious to try toys, would ditch them in a second for more ranging, foraging and eating opportunities

 

[Nanook33]

I’m doing a bit of research (just for personal reasons, and I was thinking about writing an article on the subject) on whether or not your chickens like small, colorful toys (that don’t involve food) such as xylophones, ropes with bells, mirrors, balls, tiny drums, etc.

I would really appreciate it if you could answer the poll questions and tag any people you think might be able to as well. I’d like to get as many answers as possible for accurate results.

EDIT: Also, if you have any photos of your chickens playing with stuff like this (or not playing!), I'd love to see them. It might come in handy if I end up writing an article. (I would personally message you for permission to use the photos; you are not "signing up" for anything by posting them here )

Thanks a lot!

Nope! Bought the girls a xylophone, bells, mirrors, ropes with beads, a swing. They never touched anything. They would rather scratch around for bird seed or sit on their corner perches that are in their fenced in yard. . LOL

 

[Logar]

Here is Star on her swing! She purposely jumps at it from far away as she learned that it will swing more if she does that

 

[Love Donkeys]

My flock free-range from 8:30am until dusk. All they are interested in is scratching around and finding food. In the winter, if the donkeys are laying down, the chickens like to sit on them. The donkeys don't seem to mind, mutual warmth I guess.

 

[Love Donkeys]

We had a 300+lb feeder calf that was attacked and mauled by a Rottweiler. He was alone in the barn Sick Bay for and wasn't responding to treatment. I happened to be driving past a construction site, they were remodeling an apartment building. There were piles of old mirrored medicine cabinets I stopped and asked for the mirrors. I put the mirrors around the Sick Bay stall, the calf was very happy with all his new mirrored friends.

 

[paradisepentacoop]

Mine do not care for any foreign object unless it can be perched upon or contains food XD. I have a swing, which they mostly try to avoid hitting their heads on. They do really, really love the guava tree I repurposed as a feature of their coop. It bounces and has interesting angles for them to walk/slide along.
I lifted a dog crate to get the bedding out of it and into the nesting boxes and you think that I started threatening each personally with how upset they got about that.

 

[AntiqueB]

Mine do not care for any foreign object unless it can be perched upon or contains food XD. I have a swing, which they mostly try to avoid hitting their heads on. They do really, really love the guava tree I repurposed as a feature of their coop. It bounces and has interesting angles for them to walk/slide along.
I lifted a dog crate to get the bedding out of it and into the nesting boxes and you think that I started threatening each personally with how upset they got about that.

I'm curious as to what your guava tree looks like! Do you have a picture?

 

[paradisepentacoop]

I'm curious as to what your guava tree looks like! Do you have a picture?

Here it is at dawn this morning. I can take more if needed

 

[AntiqueB]

That looks like a lot of fun for them! I might copy that. . .