Chickens are quick learners! / myLot

United Kingdom

October 8, 2015 5:27pm CST

It’s only five days since I brought our ‘new girls’ home and I’m impressed with how quickly they are learning the ropes. All their adult lives so far they will have lived in cages, but they don’t seem at all phased by their new outdoor life. They immediately knew where to sleep and to go inside at dusk. They found the food and water straight away. They are loving having plenty of greenery around to peck and they look so funny chasing insects! It took them a bit longer to work out where to lay eggs, because of course up to now they will have had to lay their eggs in the cages where they were kept. On the first day one laid her egg outside in the run, and the other two laid theirs on the roosting bars inside where they got trodden on or fell through and broke. Gradually though they have worked it out and this morning all three laid their eggs in the nestbox. How do they know to do that? The one thing they haven’t done yet though is acquire a taste for slugs! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2015.

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7 responses

Always smiling

@allknowing (153544)

• India

9 Oct 15

What an interesting find!! We too have had hens and each of them had their individual personality. Ofcourse we had them as pets the last one lived for 12 years. He was attached to our maid. Whenever she got into her room to study he would jump on the table and sit on her books. We named him Gamma in fact they were all named after these alphabets Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Theta and Omega.

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Always smiling

@allknowing (153544)

• India

9 Oct 15

@Fleura The only problem would be their droppings over which we have no control and so keeping them inside the house may not be a good idea although we would bring Gamma inside just for a while

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Fleur

@Fleura (34956)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

@allknowing great picture - and you have a lovely house!

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Fleur

@Fleura (34956)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

They certainly have great personalities. Our existing two always want to come into the house as well. Is it possible to house-train a hen? I'm interested that one lived for 12 years, I have been trying to find out how long they are likely to live. Apparently they can live up to 20 years but I don't know what would be the average you might expect for an intensively farmed hybrid.

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Anna

@LadyDuck (502251)

• Italy

9 Oct 15

They already look a lot better. It's a shame they do not like slugs, I could consider putting some chickens in my garden if they did.

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Fleur

@Fleura (34956)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

They will learn to like them quite soon don't worry!

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Anna

@LadyDuck (502251)

• Italy

9 Oct 15

@Fleura Poor chickens, those things look pretty disgusting.

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Fleur

@Fleura (34956)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

@LadyDuck I'm not forcing them to eat them! But they definitely have their own favourites. Buttercup can't get enough slugs. Daisy, on the other hand, used to prefer worms.

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AnjaP

@Rollo1 (16676)

• Boston, Massachusetts

9 Oct 15

So good to hear that they are settling in. I hope you get lots of eggs and they have a nice life.

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Jabo

@jaboUK (64346)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

Has that one in front lost all her neck feathers? I'm glad that they're learning so fast.

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Fleur

@Fleura (34956)

• United Kingdom

9 Oct 15

Yes, in fact all three have virtually no feathers on their body at all, just some of the wing and tail feathers. They look awful! It's hard to get a decent photo though as they are constantly moving about.

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Cahaya

@cahaya1983 (11116)

• Malaysia

9 Oct 15

Happy to hear they're enjoying the new life! They probably saw what happened to the broken eggs and eventually figured out the right place to lay them.

I love the sight of running chickens.