Post your favorite boredom busters and such for your chicken run/enclosed yard

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

Post your favorite boredom busters and things that you do/add to your chicken run to keep your chickens entertained! Lots of people don’t free range for many reasons, so here we can get some ideas on keeping chickens entertained in a run/enclosed yard set up! I don’t free range due to way too many daytime predators which include hawks, coyotes, dogs, stray cats (I have tiny bantams too), and the road.

My favorite boredom busters are lots of roosts of varying heights made from branches, decorations/furniture to play on, mulch in the run (all kinds of organic materials such as straw, leaves, & wood chips), and large shrubs and fruit trees pruned to 6ft. Go ahead and post your favorite boredom busters, and include pictures too!

 

[Folara]

Mine is definitely new organic materials in the run! I'm still working through last fall's leaves so around once a week they get a trash can full of new material to scratch, peck, and sort through. I also just bought them a bale of alfalfa to provide tasty green leaves for eating and hardy stems for scratching around. Side note: I found out my feed store will let me sweep up the loose hay on the ground for free, so no more buying hay for them!

Also, rearranging the furniture always gets them all excited. Move their favorite perch or fill in their favorite hole (always right in front of the door) and suddenly they have to rethink their whole lives!

 

[Folara]

I like how you didn't spread the leaves. That's chicken work! They are quite happy to peck/scratch at it and break it down for you.

I just put 20 wheelbarrows worth of wood chips/leaves/etc in my mini-orchard. I left them in piles. My girls will get plenty of exercise, entertainment and some bugs out of scratching them down. Plus they'll be spending plenty of time in the shade from the fruit trees which is quite useful right now with the heat.

Oh yes, spreading the piles is half the fun! They are still a bit terrified of giant piles but once the gears start turning in their noggins they dig right in.

I let them free range a lot. And if they are distracted I move around the straw in their coop and it makes them fuss around for hours until they have it just right again.

Mine are the same - I kick the dirt and woodchips back into their ankle-breaker holes and they fuss over re-digging the same hole or finding a new spot for one! They also get upset after I've sifted poops from the coop and need to spread around the shavings again.

 

[Wendy Bee]

At dusk, if I have time, I like to rake the litter in the run into piles, and then put big spoonfuls of crumble on the bare spots. I don't usually let the chickens out until after noon, so it keeps them busy scratching and pecking in the morning.

If adding more litter to the run (pine shavings, wood chips, grass clippings), I just unwrap the pine shavings and leave the bale whole. They sort it all out over time. The other things I leave in a pile and they distribute it nicely. Then I rake it back into piles for them.

Also log perches and tree stumps; dust bathing areas in the run (and yes, clean wood ash is great to add!). Food, oyster shell, and water stations at different locations in the run. I move them around on occasion. A half a watermelon cut lengthwise up on a stump and wedged against the hardware cloth is fun for them. Looking forward to doing the same with pumpkins when they come into season.

They free range for most of the day - they have their routines and favorite areas, and have picked some lovely dust-bathing spots. The black raspberries are coming in about now, and it's pretty fun watching them hop up and down trying to get as many berries as they can, lol. They'll do the same with wild grapes later in the season. They really have to hop to get those!

Winter is more challenging. Hanging cabbages and other veggies helps. We'll be adding a few more log perches in the run before winter, as we've added 9 more hens and are at our max for chicken to space ratio. It's a roof-covered run, though, and more like a really big coop in the winter since we enclose with clear plastic (with plenty of ventilation still), and the run goes under the coop. So they have lots of 'get out of my face space' on two levels.

I try to think like the chickens and wonder what would I like to do if I were them .

 

[TooCheep]

Mine is definitely new organic materials in the run! I'm still working through last fall's leaves so around once a week they get a trash can full of new material to scratch, peck, and sort through.

I like how you didn't spread the leaves. That's chicken work! They are quite happy to peck/scratch at it and break it down for you.

I just put 20 wheelbarrows worth of wood chips/leaves/etc in my mini-orchard. I left them in piles. My girls will get plenty of exercise, entertainment and some bugs out of scratching them down. Plus they'll be spending plenty of time in the shade from the fruit trees which is quite useful right now with the heat.

 

[TooCheep]

A good dust bath area is one of the best things you can do for chickens. Not only beneficial for minimizing bug/mite problems, but it is "spa time" for chickens.

 

[Silkiesaz]

I let them free range a lot. And if they are distracted I move around the straw in their coop and it makes them fuss around for hours until they have it just right again.

 

[3KillerBs]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/a-cluttered-run.1323792/

Chickens will not be bored as long as you create an environment that fosters natural chicken behaviors -- perching, scratching, foraging, dust bathing, sun bathing, etc.

 

[kittyvamp1884]

Oh! It isn't in the run, but if you have a large run you could put one there. We do a kiddie pool set up as a "bobbing for baubbles" activity for the chickens.

Video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/hYzmGz5BoCCYUncX6

Inside the water collard greens, kale, dandelion leaves, dried black soldier fly larvae, and whatever kitchen scraps I have lying around... Our chickens are terrible about drinking enough when it's hot out, so this gives them an opportunity to cool off, get a drink, and have some fun chasing around their favorite treats.

 

[TooCheep]

I just put 20 wheelbarrows worth of wood chips/leaves/etc in my mini-orchard. I left them in piles.

Chicken paradise!

Do you have any issues with them pecking fruit in the orchard?

Nah. That is actually the least problem with my free-ranging hens. I have 3 areas where I grow food in my backyard:

• Mini-orchard (6 small fruit trees)- my girls are heavier breeds. They don't get up into the fruit trees and cause problems. The area underneath is all wood chips which break down over time producing nice organic soil. It provides shade, cover from hawks and the girls like to dig around and dust bath in the soil.
• Raised beds (with 3' metal fencing)- The girls grab anything they can- cucumber leaves, lettuce and kale seem to be their favorites. I'm okay with sharing some.
• Berry plants- This has historically been where the girls give me the most grief- eating various of my berries. This year, the goumi and mulberries (my lowest priority berries) are producing so much they seem to be distracting both the chickens and wild birds from my raspberries and blackberries, so I'm having very little losses on my more valued berries while the girls have fun foraging.