arazla
Songster
My chickens are 14.5 weeks old and were moved to their new shed around one month ago. They cry and fuss as soon as we close the door for the night, usually between 7:30-8 pm, with rather pitiful heart wrenching whines. I've stayed in their shed a few times in the dark to see what's going on and to survey whether anything is amiss. They all clamber towards the south corner like they're desperately trying to push through the walls. At first it's mostly the hens crying and climbing on top of the head rooster who occasionally makes an irritated cluck in response. They even try to nestle under each others wings and eventually it's just one big kitten pile. Very little interest in the roosts so far. It's half roosters and half hens right now, 8 in total. One theory is that they automatically head towards the space where they used to sleep in their tent and are still confused. They usually slept in little baskets before. We put the baskets in the shed, but they have ignored them. However, the baskets are on the north side due to the layout and they're heading towards the south side which technically is closer to how they slept in their tent. 2nd theory is that they don't like the dark and want to be close to the door on the south side in case one of their humans comes in. One of the most vociferous hens jumps on my back anytime I bend down to put their food in etc, so maybe she misses me or gets bullied later? Another, but rather unlikely theory is this could be some sort of primordial fear or ancestral memory of getting attacked from a certain direction at night. They did cry a lot at night in their tent when they were little, especially when we moved them to our screened in porch. We also do have a lot of mice out here in the country, but the shed is pretty critter proofed and I can't imagine they would be afraid of a little mouse given their size now. I've seen them eat quite a large frog, albeit, it was half dead when they found it. A few times I suspected a predator was lurking somewhere near their tent when they were in the screened in porch, thought I heard something, so my last theory is that they associate bedtime as scary. I'd love to know whether I'm missing something here and whether I should be concerned.
