Today we have another chook question from Maddy in Melbourne:
Dear Big Farmer Trev.
Firstly I would like to acknowledge and thank you for being instrumental in this city kids foray into pseudo ‘country life’. Ok I’m over stating things, into suburban hen keeping.
The little silkies did prove a complex hen to care for and I subsequently found myself down from two to one.
The bird vet said ‘they are very poor egg layers, you can’t get them wet, they’re very broody , have a myriad of health problems…’ whereby I asked him if that was his professional way of saying ‘why the fuck would anyone ever want to keep silkies?’ He laughed. A lot. Which I took for a ‘yes, yes that is what I was getting at’
In any case one of the adorable little munchkins made it but was desperate for companionship and I have managed to assimilate a new hen into my flock.
All is mostly going swimmingly.
The newest girl is a Welsummer.
She’s not just the prettiest bird I have ever brought home, she is the smartest.
She was first put in with the Silkie who was thrilled to have a new roost pal. Problem being Silkies roost low and are very poor flyers and jumpers and . . . all that other stuff the bird vet said about silkies and more.
Anyway I built a new coop, and trained the little silkie how to navigate my complex hen ladder system to get into the higher coop.
She’s done well the adorable little munchkin.
So anyway..here comes my question.
The Welsummer (Penny) is still not happy at all with the coop.
Every evening right on dusk the other two happily put themselves to bed and Penny paces about looking for (even) higher digs.
As a keeper of many birds I am hoping you can help me to understand where does she actually want to sleep?!
In a tree?
Over the neighbours fence?
Is there a coop I could get built for her that would be appropriate for her discerning specifications or is she just being a dick?
I’d love to let her freerange at dusk to see where she actually wanted to sleep but I fear she may end up over the fence.
Someone suggested clipping her wings first.
I’ve never done that to any of my hens. I am remiss to fuck with their abilities like that in case it disables them in a possible escape from a predator scenario.
Historically I have just taught them that shit is so good here they don’t need to fuck off. It’s worked so far, but Pen really really wants a higher night time roost.
Or that’s what I assume she wants when she paces about considering her options and winds up on my shoulder or on the roof of her coop.
I’d rather figure out how to accomodate her needs than fuck with her body.
Do different breeds have different innate desires or is this a quirk of Penny herself?
Have you had hens that protested their accomodation and how did you address it if they did.?
Yours in good faith,
NOT a farmer by any stretch of the imagination but semi fluent in chook.
Mads.
Hey Mads,
Most birds roost according to their inherent nature and it’s damn hard to get any animal to go against it. In the photo’s you’ve sent I see you’ve got those little chook houses that I’ve also got a couple of. When I first introduced my Frizzles to their houses I kept them locked up in the little coops every night for a full week so they would come to see them as their homes.
This worked – to a degree. The chickens would go inside their houses to lay eggs and often go inside them if the weather was foul. However at dusk, most evenings the birds would fly up as best they could (Frizzles are not god flyers, yet still a cut above Silkies) and get up onto the highest part of the houses of a night to roost there. I tried to change this but ended up giving up, it’s what they wanted to do, and they were still pretty safe due to the high fences I had installed.
However behavior can be changed. After we moved state and brought all our poultry with us, for about 9 months my Frizzles had to share a pen with my Muscovy ducks. Now Muscovy’s are about the only duck breed that like to roost rather than settle on the ground, and they found the tops of the chooks houses perfect. Being about 3 times the size of the chooks and outnumbering them greatly, the ducks easily won this battle and the chooks took to roosting on the little perches inside their houses rather than on top.
After 9 months I had finally built a very large pen for the ducks and chooks and moved everyone and their accomodations inside. As part of this new set up I had built big perches strong enough to accommodate the Muscovy’s and they quickly took to them. However the chickens, even a year later, have opted to remain inside their coop of a night, despite the tops of their little houses now being vacant. Where I was unable to train my chickens, the ducks succeeded.
From what I know of Welsummers, they are medium perchers. As in they like to be up at a decent height but don’t feel the need to be up massively high in a tree like some chooks do
So my advice is either:
A: Just accept you are going to have to physically pop her in and lock her into the little coop houses each night, which she may not particularly like but will keep her safe, and hope she will eventually acclimatize to it
or
B: Build some taller perches inside your enclosure at heights of 5 and 6 feet. Then she can sleep up higher and be happier. The downside is she will be more exposed to the elements and won’t keep your Silkie company of a night. Considering your pen has a ceiling of 7 feet, I don’t think you need to go any higher.
Of course you could do as others suggested and clip her wings, but I understand why you don’t and to be honest I’ve always adopted the same thinking myself. I don’t want my birds to think they can escape a predator by flying away, only to find when they try that some bastard human has taken that ability away and they are now feral-cat food.
Anyway Madds, hope that is of some help.
Got any other advice for Maddy? Pop it in the comments section below!
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Ask Trev: How to deal with Molting Chickens