Why won't my chickens go outside????????

[craftymama86]

Quote:

 

[jbrown_14105]

(Quote) I don't keep food & water in my coop so when I open the door in am they are READY. I also give them their treats in am, usually oatmeal or grits on a cold am. If nothing else they get a couple of hands of BOSS thrown around the forager pen.(Quote)


Is the Oatmeal & or Grits cooked & "hot" or just plain "grain" style?
Jim Brown
Lockport NY

 

[Niinna]

I have had 4 chickens for 6 days now and they only come outside when i'm there.

what is BOSS?

 

[KimberlyJ]

Black Oil Sunflower Seed So simple once you know, isn't is?

 

[kwgrid]

Same song, different verse. I live in the midsouth. Long story short, I only have one rooster and one hen for the last 2 years (had 5 to start). The back yard is fenced in (welded wire) and their pen is completely enclosed with chicken wire with the coop at one end with the area under the coop fenced, too. There are outside perches inside the pen that are covered and perches inside the coop.

Their routine is to be let out into the back yard for a few hours in the afternoon, timed for the season so they can have at least 3 hours in the yard before they voluntarily return to the pen and their roost at twilight.

For the last few weeks, they won't roam the yard. The yard is the same as it has always been, fairly large with a fig tree and a peach tree and a pecan tree, but they prefer to either stay very close to the pen door or they come up to the patio and stay close to the door which is where I usually give them treats shortly before time to go into the pen. But they don't even come up to the patio door anymore. They come running out of the pen if I call them, but not before. Observation shows that they seem to want to stay out of sight unless eating.

What could be keeping them from wandering the yard and being so reclusive? This is the first year I've seen them do that and it's been going on for a few weeks now.

Thank you for any insights.

 

[newchickmomma4]

Same song, different verse.  I live in the midsouth.  Long story short, I only have one rooster and one hen for the last 2 years (had 5 to start).  The back yard is fenced in (welded wire) and their pen is completely enclosed with chicken wire with the coop at one end with the area under the coop fenced, too.  There are outside perches inside the pen that are covered and perches inside the coop.


What could be keeping them from wandering the yard and being so reclusive?  This is the first year I've seen them do that and it's been going on for a few weeks now.

Thank you for any insights.

Could they have been spooked by a predator? Maybe something that you haven't seen or heard?

 

[kwgrid]

I suppose that's possible. It seemed odd after all this time. It would have to be a 'ground' predator as opposed to hawks or eagles. That never bothered them before. They would run under the fig tree if they saw something. The rooster was/is really good at keeping eye on that particular threat. I did catch a raccoon getting into my outside garbage can one night for the first time in 26 years in this house. But they are usually night-'visitors.' I suppose the chickens don't know that.