- Jul 11, 2011
- 18
- 0
- 22
Congrats, professor, for taking the plunge. Raising chickens is a fun and rewarding activity, a good way to relax and de-stress, and their antics are endlessly amusing. Chickens are not normally considered very intelligent animals but they are much smarter than given credit for and they have a fairly sophisticated social structure which is quite interesting to watch.
If I arrive home after dark, I do no more than check on the chickens to make sure everything looks good in the coop and surrounding areas and then lock them in. I bring a flashlight with me but I try not to shine it in their eyes. You will not disturb them but they will be aware of your presence so you will likely hear them shifting on their roosts and one or two might even jump down, scrabble around for a bit then jump back up. I don't think I would recommend giving them treats or scratch after they have gone to sleep, it is something better done in the morning before you leave, or better yet, just on the weekends or during longer summer days if you are able to make it home before dark. I am not sure that feeding them so late, esp scratch, would be nutritionally beneficial, if you were even able to coax them off their roosts in the first place. Apart from that, in my experience chickens do not see so well in the dark. I once had a group of chickens that got shut out of the coop somehow one night and I found them sleeping on the ground outside the closed door. I was able to grab one without fuss but the others were spooked and ran and in their panic and haste constantly bumped into things that during the day they would normally have been able to avoid. It sure was a heck of a time chasing those birds down.
Anyway I wish you the best of luck with your chickens. They are wonderful animals, really quite independent and self-sufficient, and those eggs sure are delicious.
If I arrive home after dark, I do no more than check on the chickens to make sure everything looks good in the coop and surrounding areas and then lock them in. I bring a flashlight with me but I try not to shine it in their eyes. You will not disturb them but they will be aware of your presence so you will likely hear them shifting on their roosts and one or two might even jump down, scrabble around for a bit then jump back up. I don't think I would recommend giving them treats or scratch after they have gone to sleep, it is something better done in the morning before you leave, or better yet, just on the weekends or during longer summer days if you are able to make it home before dark. I am not sure that feeding them so late, esp scratch, would be nutritionally beneficial, if you were even able to coax them off their roosts in the first place. Apart from that, in my experience chickens do not see so well in the dark. I once had a group of chickens that got shut out of the coop somehow one night and I found them sleeping on the ground outside the closed door. I was able to grab one without fuss but the others were spooked and ran and in their panic and haste constantly bumped into things that during the day they would normally have been able to avoid. It sure was a heck of a time chasing those birds down.
Anyway I wish you the best of luck with your chickens. They are wonderful animals, really quite independent and self-sufficient, and those eggs sure are delicious.
