Story of a boy and his chickens.

GitaBooks · Jul 27, 2015

Zackman23434 said:
Is it just because I have 14 chickens or does it seem crazy that 5 lbs of food is gone every day when I get home? Despite run access all day and about 1 and a 1/2 hours of range time.

Also at night the chickens are not roosting. They have gotten everything else right but that. They All just dog pile each other in the same corner and chirp loudly when it gets dark enough. Is this normal at 7 weeks old? Am I going to have dog piling 6 pound birds if I don't correct this behavior soon?

I hear this is a pretty common problem among birds, especially those freshly moved to a new place. However, mine around around 6 weeks and are already perching at night, so yours should be learning soon.

As for eating food, you could have something like a mouse eating it, or a skunk (we had that problem). My chickens do free range and my flock of 60 (including chicks and bantams) eats 50 lbs in a week.

Zackman23434 · Jul 28, 2015

So this is a naturally learned behavior then? I will say they tend to start jumping on me in the evening but in the coop they go straight for the corner when visibility is low.

GitaBooks · Jul 28, 2015

If its hard to see, sometimes they can't find their perches as well.

faythlund · Jul 28, 2015

Zackman23434 said:
Is it just because I have 14 chickens or does it seem crazy that 5 lbs of food is gone every day when I get home? Despite run access all day and about 1 and a 1/2 hours of range time.

Also at night the chickens are not roosting. They have gotten everything else right but that. They All just dog pile each other in the same corner and chirp loudly when it gets dark enough. Is this normal at 7 weeks old? Am I going to have dog piling 6 pound birds if I don't correct this behavior soon?

Ours piled up until they were bigger in size. But now they have tis habbit of sleeping in the nesting boxes. And to make it worse all 13 try to sleep in one box. We have 6 boxes with room for 2-3 to fit. They all have to sleep together though.