Everyone out of that tree!
John wrote a few weeks ago about the chickens sleeping in the trees and its getting out of hand, I mean its winter! Earlier in the week we had a night that was really cold and 2 chickens were missing when John went to close them in their coop. The weather man said it was a record low of 7 degrees so at 11:30pm we went out and found them in the tree outside our bedroom window. They just wouldn’t come down even though it was freezing and they had puffed themselves up with their heads pulled in like little beachballs. They were too high up so John had to get a ladder and toss them down to me so I could put them in their house. Since that night its hit or miss with those same 2 birds, they like their tree even when its cold. Last night they were just too high up even with the ladder. Today Ethan saw the ladder and realized with it he could add another “climbing tree” to his list. So here is my 6 yr old and 5 of the silly chickens up in the tree today.
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Heather, that is too funny! Seeing him up in there with the chickens is too much! Thanks for dropping off the check today..How did the doc appt go?
Wow, he got up really high! Is he going to roost up there too?
Too funny.
We had this problem with our chickens our first year. Our biggest problem with it though was that early in the morning, they would end up all over the neighborhood if they roosted in the trees at night, then we lost a couple to neighbor’s dogs before we had a fence.
Since then, we’ve done two things with our chickens, when they start roosting…maybe one will work for you
1-lock them in their house for a full day or so. Give them their food and water and everything in the house. Don’t let ‘em out. They have a couple roosts at different heights in their house, no?
2-Dock their wings. It’s so easy to do, and will keep your birds from flying. It has to be done every new molt, so if you like them to roost in the summer, let their wings grow back, and dock them in the late fall again. When you do it right, it doesn’t hurt them a bit, and we’re total chicken noobs, learning everything on our own, and we’ve yet to mess it up. Here’s a link explaining how to do it:
http://everything2.com/e2node/Clipping%2520chicken%2520wings
Let me know if you wanna chat chickens anymore! lol I can’t imagine getting up in a tree, in the winter, at night, to get some chickens down.
Your son in that tree is hilarious, I love that he took it as an opportunity to get up that high, and I LOVE that he’s not afraid at all.
My husband wanted me to make sure to tell you that if you need to put more roosts in their house, the easiest way he has found is to buy a couple of the brackets you use to put in a new closet rod.
Then he uses a closet rod/branch (they like the uneven surface)/broom handle, for the roost.
Easy peasy, using about $4 in materials + recycling whatever weird odds and ends he’s stockpiled.
That is just too funny.