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

[Bella Blue]

:/This is our first winter with our chickee doos! We live in oregon the weather can go from mild and raining to ice storms and severe winds. My girls have a coop with a heat lamp pointed one direction so they can either be under the heat or in the cooler parts of the coop.it hovers around 50 ish most nights. They have fresh water and layer pellets available all the time we feed them goodies like chopped spinach and live meal worms or night crawlers. Sometime they get cooked warm oat meal plain along w scratch and dried meal worms.

The weather is too cold for me to watch them in our yard.while its fenced we have had terrible problems with one neoghbors two cats trying to kill neighbors chickens and mine.I never leave my flock unatended and sit nearby with a garden hose ready to show the cats its not ok to be chasing my girls. How ever they do have a pretty large utterly safe run area and the bug "pickin's" are very slim this time of year in the yard. I think they may be spending more time in their run as I can't be catching colds trying to keep an eye on them this time of yr.

So what do you all do too keep your chickens from being too bored and avoid plucking or bullying in the winter ? I know what its like being cooped up no fun...but winter brings that for people too!

Looking for tips on things to keep them a little busy... thanks!:/

 

[24279102]

I can't keep mine in green cabbage. I hang them on the fencing and it keeps them occupied for hours. I have 20 chickens at the moment and some days it only takes one day for the cabbages to be down to the nubs !!

 

[jetdog]

Same here with the cabbage but I hang it like a tether ball just high enough so they can't reach it easy and have to jump a little.

 

[Cluky]

hee hee the cabbage tether is hours of entertainment

 

[gilcamp4]

I can't keep mine in green cabbage. I hang them on the fencing and it keeps them occupied for hours. I have 20 chickens at the moment and some days it only takes one day for the cabbages to be down to the nubs !!

how do you hang the cabbage on fence? we never did that it sounds neat I would like to try, we give them crushed corn and the oats you give your kids, plus a horse feed, we have 29 hens and 2 roosters thinking about getting 1 more to make it 30 hens

 

[24279102]

I have a couple of small ropes tied to the wire. Then I poke a hole through the top end of the cabbage with a screw driver and attach it with a zip tie so that the cabbage is about head height for them. It may take a little while for them to get used to it but once they figure it out it is quite fun to watch them playing tetherball ! I once went to buy cabbage and they were out so I bought red ones. Oh my gosh ! They were scared to death of them and wouldn't go into the coop. The mind of a chicken...

 

[NicChicks2013]

I hung cabbage..not one peck..do you have to remove some of the outer leaves? Maybe they just like junk food

 

[KayTee]

I hung cabbage..not one peck..do you have to remove some of the outer leaves? Maybe they just like junk food

My girls go mad for Swiss chard leaves - they're like pirahnas when I hang a bunch up - but show them cabbage or cauliflower leaves and they look at me as if I'm trying to poison them! They will jump up to get chard leaves out of my hands, but don't even have a single peck at the other stuff. The same for beetroot - they fight over the boiled peelings, but aren't at all interested in the leaves (boiled or raw). They also change their tastes - last year I had to protect all my rocket salad plants, because they devastated them - wouldn't stop eating them, but this year they walk over the plants without a second glance!

That's chickens for you

 

[3ChickensNADuck]

I haven't done it myself but i've heard of a few people making a swing for the chickens and hanging it in there coop. Chickens already like jumping on things so a branch tied to some string maybe entertaining for the chickens

 

[fosterson]

Mine seem to content themselves with digging through 9 inches of DL to get to the ground beneath...mind you they have a nice sunny run and plenty of leafy greens or vegetables on any given day...