Boredom Busters!

Our Barred Rock hen sleeping in the sun

Do you know what happens when chickens get bored?  No really!  It's a real thing! The weather is sometimes bad for days.  Rain, rain, rain in the spring.  Snow and ice in the winter.  Excessive heat in the summer.  What do the chickens do?  They mostly stay inside the coop to keep warm, dry, cool, etc. according to what the current situation might be.  When the chickens are accustomed to being outside with plenty of room to move around and because of the weather they have to resort to being inside the coop all or most of the day then behavioral issues can arise.  Feather picking and egg eating are two of the most common issues.  Feather picking can result in sores and sometimes blood is spilled.  This just 'eggs on' the chickens to pick more and more at the wound.  Egg eating can also occur.  Once this starts, it's hard to correct.  But most of this can be avoided by giving the chickens something to occupy themselves with.

Some ideas:

• Scratch, crumbles, sunflower seeds, etc in a plastic bottle with holes drilled in the bottle.  Make several.  The chickens will roll them and kick them and scratch at them to get at the food.
• Hang a green cabbage head, purple cabbage head, boughs of kale tied together with some string, etc. for the chickens to peck. They'll love it!
• Flock block - either purchased or homemade.  The chickens will spend hours pecking at the goodies.
• Places to climb - ladders, stumps, different levels of roost bars - chickens love to jump on something up off the ground.
• Place a mirror in the coop or run.  The chickens will enjoy looking at themselves for hours.
• Extra food - Instead of feeding them at certain times of the day...during stressful times place an extra variety of food for them to enjoy.  Pecking at food will keep them from pecking at each other.
• When it's hot out freeze some berries in a plastic container of water.  Place the big chunk of ice and berries in the chicken run.  They'll peck the ice to get at the bright pretty berries and hydrate themselves at the same time.
• Chicken Salad - Serve up a nice pan of greens with some strawberries, blueberries, grape tomatoes thrown in.  They'll love it.  They are so funny chasing blueberries and trying to steal them from each other.

Kale salad with tomatoes and blueberries

Enjoying a refreshing salad