Whenever I see pictures and videos of flocks of happy cooperative chickens frolicking in fields of green grass, I feel judged and hostile. Why do our chickens always become psychotic?
There’s a new refugee at the Secret Lair. I came to Landlady’s Big Chickenhouse yesterday evening, as always, to take care of matters. All the Brahma hens (except one, which was up on the nesting boxes and being very quiet) were crowded into a corner and facing the wall. All are now bald on their backs and most were bleeding at least a little. Meanwhile Landlady’s three new Auracanas, once an oppressed minority but now grown to the size and aggressiveness of velociraptors, seem to have decided they own the place. Mayor Quimby, the one surviving Brahma cock, was just waiting for his dinner and staying the hell out of it.
The hen on the nesting shelf did not resist when I picked her up and that’s always an alarming sign. Cursory examination showed she hadn’t just been pecked – she’d been eaten.
Okay: I don’t know with eyewitness certainty that the Auracanas are to blame for this but the evidence points their way. Since they’ve pretty much taken over the chickenyard anyway, I decided to separate the two groups by covering the Chickenhouse’s open door with hardware cloth: Auracanas outside, Brahmas inside. Unless one of the Brahmas has quietly become Hazel Lector (not impossible) that should at least buy me some time.
I brought the latest crime victim home and set up a comfy condo in my powershed while I try to figure out something better to do. I suck at this chicken farmer thing.
Meanwhile there’s more bird-related drama right inside the Secret Lair, which currently suffers a plague of sparrows.
They keep flying into the chimney’s weathercap. Unless they fly right back out again they descend the stovepipe in slow fluttering panic and ending up in the woodstove. I’ve rescued three already and recovered one dead body, and I’ve lost count of the ones that found their own way out.
Meanwhile the rat trap in the woodshed? The one continually ignored by that pack rat that lives to mock me? Yesterday evening it scored…a sparrow. Yeah.
It was caught by the leg and might live. I even suck at being a hermit.
I’m having a really hard time picturing the Auracanas as “aggressive” in any way. Those I had, for years, were the most docile birds imaginable. They are the only breed I ever had that didn’t peck on each other.
Sounds as if a piece of hardware cloth around the stove pipe top is in order… but I have no idea what to do about the trap… unless you happen to be baiting it with bird seed. LOL
These birds are not docile. I culled out the cock weeks ago and everything was fine until just a few days ago. Funnily enough it was Agnes the RIR that got between the Auracanas and the Brahmas: That little red hen was not afraid of the big white ones. But then things got more serious. She’s one of the few not bloody, but she wasn’t playing cop anymore.
I wish I could just eat my problems.
BTW, Joel, Agnes’ inglorious banishment to the Big Chicken House (and the hilarity that ensued) would also make a great story for the book.
Time to start docking beaks. A pair of canine nail clippers work best, but side cutters will work.
I agree with Landlady – and the latest chicken stories are for sure book material. I don’t have a lifetime of experience with chickens but when I had them, raised from chicks, I didn’t see the kinds of issues you have. I’m thinking that they are overcrowded and bored, it’s too hot for them, they want more attention from you, something like that. They have too much energy and not enough to do or not enough variety in their daily lives. Toss them a head of lettuce, a small raw cabbage or chunks of raw cabbage, uncooked corn on the cob, something to occupy their little alleged minds. Sit and pet them. Oh, maybe not, given that you are also the Chicken Eliminator. Give them a plastic kiddie pool full of water to play in. Do they have any kind of tallish plants in their run for shade? It may seem like a waste, but how about a little Jim Beam in their water? JK!!! JK!!! A screened stovepipe cap, made or bought, will solve your bird problems.
The key to the difference between your experiences and the images you have seen of “happy cooperative chickens frolicking in fields of green grass” is almost certainly the green grass, where they will peck and scratch and scuff, individually amusing themselves looking for things to eat and having lots of things to do and look at. For sure, your chickens are bored.
The chickens get more raw veggies than I do. When I go to town and have money for veggies, (and when the local store has any) they get lettuce/cabbage/corn on the cob before I get mine. But I get to town every week or two, so…
As for shade, they have lots. It does get hot, this is a desert. But most of the chicken yard is covered with a cargo parachute and the coop is up off the ground. In summer they spend most of the day under it, just like the dogs spend most of their day under the cabin.
I Googled “what to do with bored chickens” and got more ideas for solutions than I ever used when I had chickens. And I had totally forgotten about the mirror thing, shiny moving objects, and that you get more eggs when your chickens aren’t bored. The blue balls and the veggies on a string are very clever and will keep them occupied for hours. Great exercise, too.
I don’t know where you live, but do you have nopales, cactus pads? and manzanita fruit you could harvest for free as needed for chicken veggies?
And check out a plastic kiddie pool partially filled with water. Seriously. And take pictures for your book of your chickens happily splashing in the pool. You can put the used water on your veggie garden.
Sounds like you and Landlady and Ian need a large veggie garden, just to keep peace in the chicken yard and have an occasional tasty free range chicken dinner.