Strangest acting Chickens I have ever had!?!

[FLchick77]

Okay, I will try not to get long winded. I have raised chickens for years, so I am aware of "normal" chicken behavior. I normally get my chickens from Ideal Poultry and have wonderful, healthy, normal acting chickens. I got some baby chicks from IP but for different reasons ended up buying three 2 month old EE chickens from a local lady. I brought them home and put them in the chicken coop (a seperate pen from the chicks from IP). The just hang out in the corner. They don't scratch and peck; that I ever see. And even more odd, I had not had chickens for awhile so I used my chicken coop as a garden. There was left over greens and veggies in the pen that I was willing to sacrifice to get more chickens, but the chickens never touched any of the plants!! There were red ripe tomatoes, in reach of them, little bits of chard and spinach other various weeds popping up and weeks go by and they never touch them!! What?! They are the oddest acting chickens I have ever seen. They just hang out in the corner and will come get food from the feeder ever so often them go back to their corner. My husband has said he has seen them out pecking, but I haven't. Another odd thing is they smell like a dirty dog. I have never know of chickens to smell like this before.

I thought maybe they were sick, but they seem to "look" healthy and i have had them for over a month now. Honestly, I thougth they might be sick, but think they would have died by now if they were.

Has anyone experienced this before? I am stumped!!

 

[sourland]

What conditions were they kept in before you obtained them? It almost sounds as if they were psychologically limited by being raised in a very restricted environment.

 

[FLchick77]

Yes! I was thinking the same thing. They they are psycologically challenged somehow. The women that I got them from said she was wanting to start a "local hatchery." She said she let ALL her chickens out to free range at different times, but now I'm not so sure. They were in a smallish pen, covered, dirt floor probably 4X5 or so and maybe 8-12 chickens all the same age in the pen. We only bought three from her.

The other day I decided if those three chickens are just going to sit in the back corner of the big pen I would allow my chicks from IP (now about 2 months old) to have the bigger pen and put the odd chickens in the coop the chicks were in. After a day all the weeds and plants are gone Happy to have some normal acting chickens.

I was thinking once the two groups are about the same size I would introduce the others into the IP flock and hopefully they would learn how to scratch and peck from observation.

 

[sourland]

They may very well learn how to be 'chickens' by associating with your IP chicks.