hello yes chickens are cool and i love them

I thought you guys might appreciate this video :P

 

AHAHAHA yep. I always side-eye anyone that says their chickens exclusively eat an all vegan diet because like. The only way you will accomplish that is if you have them locked up somewhere where they can't hunt and forage and follow their natural instincts. Chickens want protein, and while they get it mostly through bugs and some plant stuffs, any chicken will absolutely do to a mouse what was demonstrated in that video if given the opportunity. There was a mouse in our wood pile this summer, and the chickens would surround it and try to jump up and down on some of the branches to flush him out, but he was smart and stayed hidden.

 

I don't think I ever linked this here. Rose is disgruntled about the snow.

 

I've got chickens! Currently, three of them are broody, and all three of those are broody on the same nest so it's just a pile of offended broody. It's ridiculous. They're so offended that there's other chickens in the nest but all three of them are brooding the same nest why.
There's not even any eggs there, they're just brooding an empty nest. Why. There's been at least one broody on that nest for months now!

Also, once, when Mum was feeding them because my leg was injured, she saw 3 chickens trying to eat from the feeder and another chicken standing on the lid of the feeder, preventing it from opening no matter how many chickens stood on the pedal.

 

Chickens are actually meant to be pretty smart, so I expect the one standing on the feeder was just being a lil shit XDD

 

Yeah, possibly.
I've also seen a chicken repeatedly bashing a large mouse against soft dirt.

 

Allowing them to be broody without eggs to set is actually pretty bad for their long term health! They don't eat nearly enough because they refuse to leave the nest except to eat once a day, and the end up getting very malnourished. Setting eggs is kind of hard on them for that reason and because no eggs hatching there's nothing to trigger the broody period to end. Personally I'd take advantage of three whole broody mommas and stick some hatching eggs under them, but if you don't want more chickens you can stick them each in a broody breaker.

 

We don't have any hatching eggs, and we've been taking them off the nest and putting them in front of the feeder.
As well as putting them in reach of food, it weights down the feeder pedal so the other chickens don't have to stand on it to eat.

 

LMAO omg using the broodies to keep the feeder open XD

 

It's effective for about half an hour, after which the broodies realise they're not on their nest and rush back to their empty nest.

 

chicken shaming, I fucking love my dash rn

Spoiler: the shamed chickens

 

i need to chickenshame omg

 

I'd love to see it lmfao

 

...wow just stuffed a whole mouse in its face.

 

Chickens sometimes do that. It looks ridiculous.

 

I respect these beasts.

 

Same hat! Chickens are amazing

 

One of my chickens got out of the run and got spotted by the dog. This resulted in the dog running up to the chicken and trying to sniff her.

While the chicken ran away at first, after about three meters she suddenly stopped, turned around, and started chasing the dog.

Result: Dog fleeing from an ordinary hen, who is chasing after it at top speed.

 

Lol, my dog would probably think that's a game. As is, he helps me herd them back into the run if I need to pen them up and they aren't going on their own. And he's a 10 year old lab/husky mix, no herding breed in there!

 

The dog's a police dog that we're fostering.

Amusingly when she showed up here she was, at first, terrified of the lambs and the chickens. She would cower. She got over it after a few days of the lambs and chickens not turning murderous and took to trying to lick up the milk the lambs spilt.

Also, every so often, I hear loud yelping. 100% of the time, it's because the dog tried to lick the electric fence, again. She's done it three times now! The same fence every time!

Back to the topic of chickens-after coming back from Dunedin we found that all four of our newer chickens are still broody so I took them out of the henhouse and shut and locked it.
Only the broodies go in the henhouse anymore, other chickens used to go in there to lay but the broodies chased them out.

So now there's a bunch of floofed broodies yelling at each other in front of the henhouse.