Silly Chick behavior

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

I love, love, love my 6 baby black sex links. Their behavior is curious and I just want to share.
Chicken Pros, please explain this one: Whats with the little break dance move of laying on the side, and flapping the wings and kinda moving all around, like a wiggle? Oh, it scared me so! I thought maybe an injured wing was the cause!
How about when they hear a new noise and they sound like a referee blowing its whistle?! They all STOP and FREEZE when one 'blows the whistle'. This morning they witnessed a bird outside the window and out came the whistle. The funniest whistle came when hubby sat with them and FARTED! OMG, They darted away and went into freeze mode! We laughed and laughed.
Or, how about chasing one another all around jumping from here to there and taking flight across their brooder?! sometimes I have to tell them to Chill out!!
Or, giving them a live grub and watching her run around like nuts with all the others in tow.
These moments are so precious and fleeing as I know they will be full grown soon and outside in the real world!

 

[City Farmer Jim]

The "whistle" is an alarm call to signal to be still least you get eaten. The flopping on the ground is their way of asking you to make them a dust bath area so the get rid of any bugs or loose feathers, and the chasing around the one who has something is like us chasing the Good Humor truck...chickens are great aren't they...so entertaining.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

The "whistle" is an alarm call to signal to be still least you get eaten. The flopping on the ground is their way of asking you to make them a dust bath area so the get rid of any bugs or loose feathers, and the chasing around the one who has something is like us chasing the Good Humor truck...chickens are great aren't they...so entertaining.

Thanks for the info City Farmer Jim
Question: They were born 22 days ago. is this too soon to set up a dust bath tub for them? Also, what exactly should the dust bath material be? and also, how deep? I imagine the dust bath tub be dirt. Is 22 days old too soon?
I can watch them all day, so entertaining

 

[Cryss]

I can watch them all day, so entertaining

Chicken TV! Very therapeutic. I send hubby to the coop when he’s down.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

That is a debatable question and a good one. Ours is a touch DE maybe a cup at most with wood ash from our fire pit and this time a pound ish of peat moss and like 5-6 pounds of garden soil. Really just stuff we have laying around. As to age to start them...that would be better answered by the great minds here on BYC. We introduced our littles to the bigs at about 12 to 14 weeks. They were in a small run in the big girls so they could get to know one another through the chicken wire separating then from 8 or not weeks to the 12-14 week mark. So our littles flock didn't get a "real dust bath" until they were all sleeping in the same coop.

 

[City Farmer Jim]

We have a Little Tykes turtle sand box that is the dust bath for them. Truth be told I/we are newbies here and have asked hundreds of questions and received PRICELESS information about how to care for our flock and they are happy well adjusted hens. This site is hands down the best place for you...glad we could help you out.

 

[K0k0shka]

They were born 22 days ago. is this too soon to set up a dust bath tub for them?

It's never too soon. Mama hens take their babies outside within a day or two of hatching and they get on with their chicken behaviors pretty much right away. Even my brooder chicks were only several days old when I saw them dust bathing for the first time. I have sand as my brooder bedding, so they have a built-in dust bath. The big chickens have peat moss in their dust bath - their favorite medium of all time - so the chicks hatched by a broody outside dust bathe with her in the peat moss, and the chicks in the brooder use the sand that's their bedding.

 

[Coops Dad]

Our first chicks used their food bowl as a dust bath... we switched to a chick feeder shortly after. We move our chicks to an outside brooder/chick tractor on grass at 3 weeks, weather permitting, with a supplemental 75 watt heat lamp in the coop part.

I throw moths into the brooder starting at one week and the little beasts practice their hunter-killer thing. Skills.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

I love, love, love my 6 baby black sex links. Their behavior is curious and I just want to share.
Chicken Pros, please explain this one: Whats with the little break dance move of laying on the side, and flapping the wings and kinda moving all around, like a wiggle? Oh, it scared me so! I thought maybe an injured wing was the cause!
How about when they hear a new noise and they sound like a referee blowing its whistle?! They all STOP and FREEZE when one 'blows the whistle'. This morning they witnessed a bird outside the window and out came the whistle. The funniest whistle came when hubby sat with them and FARTED! OMG, They darted away and went into freeze mode! We laughed and laughed.
Or, how about chasing one another all around jumping from here to there and taking flight across their brooder?! sometimes I have to tell them to Chill out!!
Or, giving them a live grub and watching her run around like nuts with all the others in tow.
These moments are so precious and fleeing as I know they will be full grown soon and outside in the real world!

They will still be quite comical when they are grown, with their own personalities and strange things they do

 

[Auntiejessi3]

Thanks for the info City Farmer Jim
Question: They were born 22 days ago. is this too soon to set up a dust bath tub for them? Also, what exactly should the dust bath material be? and also, how deep? I imagine the dust bath tub be dirt. Is 22 days old too soon?
I can watch them all day, so entertaining

Just some regular ol cheap potting soil from Wally world will work just fine