what do you all do to keep your birds from being too bored all winter?what do you feed for treats?

[The Yakima Kid]

I have to say, weird as it may seem, my chickens hate cabbage! They hate all cruciferous vegetables so that whole cabbage tether ball thing is not an option for us.

Our biddies look at me as if I'm trying to poison them or something when I offer them cabbage. There are some other greens they don't like, either, including some of the lettuces.

On the other hand, no blueberry growing below two feet evades them if I don't keep a strict eye out.

 

[Tomtommom]

They REALLY enjoyed the Thanksgiving turkey carcass, it was delightfully wrong watching them peck it clean (wrong as in the whole chickens eating turkey thing).

Also, try putting down cardboard, plywood or plastic on bare soil, then remove it after a few days.. you'd be amazed at all the creepy crawlies that pop up, they have a field day 'hunting'.

My girls also have a compost pile perch.. contraption. They enjoy kicking out all the leafs and they slowly shred them into lovely little pieces. The soil in their run has got to be *amazing* considering all the manure and shredded leafs they've scratched through it.





Mine still get bored, especially when it's raining and the run gets super mucky, as it has been the past week... they end up eating twice as much food and race for the door when I open it (trying to escape to free-range).

They didn't care one bit for cabbage. Kale or collards is a bit better to their liking. They like chasing an apple, it's like chicken soccer.

 

[FrogEggs]

Back in the 1910s, during the "Little Ice Age", Oregon Agricultural College kept chickens in open front coops on range year around with winter temperatures in the 20s. The Columbia River used to freeze over in the 19th C. Professor Dryden noted that one of his record setting layers preferred to be as close to the open front of the coop as she could get. These were Leghorns, Barred Rocks, and Leghorn X Barred Rock.

Very "cool" story! These birds never cease to amaze me!

 

[wherry]

I also do not heat my coop and we live in the northeast. I do keep a base heater under the water and that is inside the coop - more to keep the electric wires contained and away from the chickens but it does give off a little heat inside at night. It is expected to get down to 7 F overnight later this week and I don't plan to do anything special. They have feathers and will huddle and cuddle when cold. I have a run with a tarp cover and keep hay on the ground which I pile up in different places - takes them less than 2 days to spread it around again. The tarp over the run keeps the snow out. They didn't like the snow last year - assuming they won't again this year - plus it keeps the run relatively dry if there is rain.
For treats - if it is really cold - warm oatmeal. I give them leftovers - rice, veggies, salad. They usually get sunflower seeds and scratch during the day - thrown into the hay so they have to scratch for it. I am starting to do some sprouting and will see how that goes and may share it with the girls once I have the hang of it. I have tried hanging cabbage, corn, lettuce, kale, etc and at first they looked at me like I was crazy but the greens disappeared in short order.
On occasion I will let them out of the run but I need to be around since we have a myriad of chicken loving predators.
Hope this helps.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Very "cool" story! These birds never cease to amaze me!

As an online acquaintance says "they are tough little dinosaurs."

Professord Dryden worked with white Leghorns, Barred Rocks, and hybrids of the two. After he retired, he moved to a poultry farm at Modesto, California, and developed one of the best dual purpose white egg layers, the California Gray. While at OAC he bred two very famous hens - Lady McDuff and Oregona. One was the first documented three hundred egg a year hen; the other was a long distance laying champion who had produced 1,000 eggs by early in her sixth year of lay. Many of the buildings built at OAC, now Oregon State University, during the 1910s and 1920s were paid for by the sale of breeding stock from the OAC farm. I believe the first chickens to be shipped by air were Dryden breeding stock from OAC.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

We forget that breeders like Professor Dryden, generally considered the foremost poultry breeder of his era, were often interested in high second and even later year egg production as the cost of replacing flocks was quite formidable in that era when incubators and brooders were often powered by coal, kerosene, or even gasoline. I do not even wish to contemplate what could result when things went wrong with a gasoline powered brooder.

 

[handyman42]

What they do love, though, are peanuts. I will throw a section of straw down for them and then throw a cup of peanuts into it where they will have fun for hours scratching through it looking for goodies. I just let the straw get nasty over a couple days and then toss it in the compost pile. I make sure, also, that they get plenty of out of the run time to play in the yard which makes it so that when they are confined, they are not all that miserable.

I do pretty much the same thing but instead of peanuts I just take a few handfuls of pellets or corn and toss them into a pile of straw and the next day when I go out to feed I can see just how much fun they had scratching around in everything and getting some food.

You gotta remember chickens are natural foragers so anything to encourage that instinct is great.

Have fun keepin' em busy!!

 

[Jose Luis]

I have 3 hens and live in south florida. Ice and snow is far from here. There are not as many chicken lovers down here. I have search for people to share experiences but nothing. If you know anyone

 

[Jose Luis]

But i keep my hens busy with worms and fruits like mango, papaya and sweet plantain or ripe bananas. Once in a while cat food

 

[Dboohiking]

My girls always get the veggie scraps, and I feed them scratch grains to hunt and peck during the day, but when its cold out, I add in some oatmeal and soak the grains in some hot water before scattering for them. They love it.